Self-setting hydroxyapatite cement: a novel skeletal drug-delivery system for antibiotics.

A novel approach using a self-setting hydroxyapatite (HAP) cement as a skeletal drug-delivery system has been proposed to solve the problem of delivering drugs to skeletal tissue at sufficiently high local concentrations for desirable therapeutic effects. HAP cements loaded with antibiotics can be formed in situ and can be used as bonding materials between bone and prostheses, as well as drug-release devices. The cement also possesses sufficient mechanical strength to be a potential bone grafting material. Using cephalexin and norfloxacin as model drugs, we observed continuous in vitro release profiles of these compounds from cement pellets loaded 0.9-4.8% by weight with one of the drugs. This drug-release pattern correlated well with the Higuchi model. This hydroxyapatite cement drug-delivery system can be applied in the treatment of osteomyelitis and infected compound fractures.