Prostheses will be tested in vitro
Scientists have figured out how to abandon testing of prostheses on animals
Scientists of the National Research Technological University "MISIS" together with colleagues from The Technical University of Dortmund (Germany) has developed a technology for testing orthopedic implants without the participation of experimental animals, follows from an article in the Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials (Scholz et al., Development of biomimetic in vitro fatigue assessment for UHMWPE implant materials).
"Scientists from the NUST MISIS Center for Composite Materials together with colleagues from The Technical University of Dortmund has developed a technology that makes it possible to predict the wear of the prosthesis material under mechanical stress in an environment close to real," the publication says.
Previously, implants for checking wear indicators had to be implanted into the bodies of experimental animals for about six months. Now, instead, it will be possible to use a synthesized liquid simulating human blood plasma and a high-tech servo-hydraulic installation.
"We provided the material and proposed the use of synthetic plasma, and our colleagues from The Technical University of Dortmund has developed a fatigue testing technology and conducted an experiment on its own equipment," Fedor Senatov, a researcher at the Center for Composite Materials, is quoted in the publication.
During the study, scientists evaluated how the new material worked in conditions that mimic the loads of the femur and tibia, that is, cyclic and static.
Marina Knyazeva, a representative of the research group of the Technical University of Dortmund, said that animal testing is not only questionable from the point of view of ethics, but also ineffective.
At the same time, it is too early to talk about the complete rejection of laboratory animals.
"Our technology will allow us to compare several materials at once, without testing any of them on animals. However, when the most optimal material from the list is found, it will need to be tested already in vivo – in living organisms. This is due, first of all, to the need to check the biocompatibility of the material, as well as its orthopedic parameters – after all, patients may encounter a variety of features of the musculoskeletal system," Senatov explained.
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