New material improves treatment of complex bone infections

When implanted on an injured or infected bone, the material – developed by a team at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and Advanced Materials and Bioengineering Research Centre (AMBER) - speeds up bone healing and reduces the risk of infections without the need for antibiotics. Their work is detailed in Advanced Materials.

Standard clinical treatment for infected bones, including several weeks with antibiotics and often removal of the infected portion of bone tissue, can be slow. Furthermore, around half of bone infections are caused by MRSA, which is resistant to antibiotics, and prolonged antibiotic treatment increases the risk of infections becoming tolerant to available treatments.

To help patients to heal, researchers at RCSI created a material from a substance that is similar to bone. The scaffold-like structure of this material means that when it is implanted onto injured or diseased bone, it encourages the bone to regrow.