Calcium phosphate cements: competitive drug carriers for the musculoskeletal system?

Abstract

This paper attempts to provide an insight in the application of calcium phosphate cements (CPC) in the field of drug delivery devices for the musculoskeletal system. Their ability to set once implanted within the body, giving a highly microporous material, allows incorporation of many types of drugs and biologically active molecules, without losing activity and denaturalization. Additionally, by being injectable these materials can be used in the growing market for new technologies of minimally invasive surgery, and in the treatment of difficult accessible sites. All these characteristics, together with the excellent biological behaviour of CPC, make them good candidates for drug delivery devices to be used in the pharmacological treatment of a great number of diseases of the bone tissue.