Self-hardening and thermoresponsive alpha tricalcium phosphate/pluronic pastes.

Unlabelled: Although calcium phosphate cements (CPCs) are used for bone regeneration in a wide range of clinical applications, various physicochemical phenomena are known to hinder their potential use in minimally invasive surgery or in highly vascularized surgical sites, mainly because of their lack of injectability or their low washout resistance. The present work shows that the combination of CPCs with an inverse-thermoresponsive hydrogel is a good strategy for finely tuning the cohesive and rheological properties of CPCs to achieve clinical acceptable injectability to prevent phase separation during implantation and cohesion to avoid washout of the paste. The thermoresponsive CPC developed combines alpha-tricalcium phosphate with an aqueous solution of pluronic F127, which exhibits an inverse thermoresponsive behaviour, with a gelling transformation at around body temperature.