IMPLANT MADE OF CARRIER MATERIAL INTERSPERSED WITH BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE DONOR MATERIAL, AND METHOD FOR PRODUCING SUCH AN IMPLANT

Abstract

The invention relates to an implant (1) for introducing into a patient, having an implant body that is at least partially resorbable and is porous at least in some regions and that is made of a ceramic carrier material (2), the carrier material being provided with a donor material (3) that delivers ions to influence the patient's cellular metabolism in the implanted state, the carrier material (2) being interspersed with the donor material (3). The invention also relates to a method for producing an implant (1) of said type.

Claims

1. Implant for insertion into a patient, having an at least partially resorbable and at least in partial regions porous implant body made of a ceramic carrier material, which is provided with a donor material that, in the implanted state, emits ions for influencing the patient's cellular metabolism, wherein the donor material intersperses the carrier material so that the donor material is present throughout the entire implant volume, wherein the implant comprises first layers, last layers and middle layers, which are surrounded by the first and last layers, wherein the first, last and middle layers have different densities/porosities.

2. Implant according to claim 1, wherein the donor material comprises ceramic particles and/or metallic particles.

3. Implant according to claim 1, wherein the implant body is divided into layers or into partial regions of different density and/or porosity.

4. Implant according to claim 1, wherein individual pores in the implant body are connected to each other via connection channels.

5. Implant according to claim 4, wherein the donor material is arranged and concentrated in the carrier material in such a way that, when the ions are released in the implanted state, the connection channels necessarily result, or that the connection channels and implant body are already present before insertion into the patient.

6. Implant according to claim 1, wherein the implant body has a total porosity between 3% and 60%.

7. Implant according to claim 1, wherein the pore size of the pores in the implant body lies in a range of 300 μm to 1,500 μm.

8. Implant according to claim 1, wherein the ceramic carrier material is provided in the form of powder or granular ceramic particles.

9. Implant according to claim 2, wherein the ceramic particles and the metal particles are spherical with a particle size between 5-18 μm for the metal particles and between 25-120 μm for the ceramic particles and/or cubic with an edge length between 5-25 μm for the metal particles and between 40-60 μm for the ceramic particles.

10. A method of manufacturing an implant according to claim 1, comprising the steps: a) mixing of carrier material and donor material into a raw mixture, b) spatially-resolved bonding of the raw mixture (RM) into a plurality of individual layers (ES1, ES2, ESn), and c) superimposing and layer-by-layer bonding of the plurality of individual layers to form the finished implant body.

Description

[0053] The following is shown:

[0054] FIG. 1 shows a cross-sectional view of the implant according to the invention; and

[0055] FIG. 2 shows a flow diagram depicting the steps for manufacturing an implant.

[0056] The figures are merely schematic in nature and are intended only for the purpose of understanding the invention. The embodiment is purely exemplary.

[0057] FIG. 1 shows the implant 1, which has the carrier material 2 and a donor material 3. At the same time, the layer structure of the implant 1 can be seen. The layers are arranged in such a way that, in this configuration example, the first layers 4 are arranged at the bottom, the middle layers 5 are located above the first layers 4, and the last layers 6 are arranged at the top (above the middle layers 5) in this view. The first, middle and last layers 4, 5, 6 have different densities/porosities.

[0058] FIG. 2 shows a flow chart which illustrates the individual steps for obtaining the implant 1 according to the invention. In a first step S1, the ceramic carrier material 2 and the donor material 3, which contains resorbable components, are mixed together to form a raw mixture RM. In the subsequent step S2, the individual components of this raw mixture RM are bonded to each other in a spatially-resolved manner by laser sintering, so that a plurality of individual layers, e.g. a first individual layer ES1, a second individual layer ES2 and further individual layers are produced, wherein any individual layer is characterized by ESn. In the third step S3, which follows on step S2, these individual layers ES1, ES2, . . . , ESn are superimposed and bonded to each other under energy input so that the finished implant 1 is obtained as a product.

LIST OF REFERENCE SIGNS

[0059] 1 implant [0060] 2 carrier material [0061] 3 donor material [0062] 4 first layers [0063] 5 middle layers [0064] 6 last layers [0065] ES1 first individual layer [0066] ES2 second individual layer [0067] ESn n.sup.th (any) individual layer [0068] RM raw mixture [0069] S1 first step [0070] S2 second step [0071] S3 third step