New Paste-CPC paper published

We are excited to share the results of our latest research: the combination of our ready-to-use calcium phosphate bone cement with antibiotics in a two-syringe setup. It was demonstrated that mixing the cement paste and vancomycin solution resulted in macroscopically homogeneous pastes. Drug modification with vancomycin had no adverse effects on cement properties in terms of mechanical performance, phase composition, porosity and pore size distribution. Drug release from ready-to-use pastes exhibited a lower initial burst release of 14.5% compared to 47.9% for aqueous powder/liquid cement pastes after 24 h. At later time points, the initial exponential release kinetics slowed down due to both a decreased concentration gradient and structural changes of the cement matrix during setting. This resulted in sustained release of the antibiotic for more than 30 days. The released vancomycin maintained high antimicrobial activity against S. aureus with inhibition zones of 5.4–6.8 mm in an agar diffusion test.

The study demonstrates what new possibilities for local antibiotic therapy could look like while providing all the benefits of a bioresorbable, osteoconductive material.