Mechanical and biological evaluation of a hydroxyapatite-reinforced scaffold for bone regeneration.

With over 500,000 bone grafting procedures performed annually in the United States, the advancement of bone regeneration technology is at the forefront of medical research. Many tissue-engineered approaches have been explored to develop a viable synthetic bone graft substitute, but a major challenge is achieving a load-bearing graft that appropriately mimics the mechanical properties of native bone. In this study, sintered hydroxyapatite (HAp) was used to structurally reinforce a scaffold and yield mechanical properties comparable to native bone.