ABSTRACT
Over the past decades, autologous and allogeneic bones have been used as implants to repair bone defects. However, those approaches have limitations that cannot be ignored. Currently, a lot of articial materials have been prepared for bone repair, one of which is nanosized hydroxyapatite (nHA), which is the major inorganic component of natural bone with good biocompatibility and osteoconductivity. From the point of biomimic, nHA should be a kind of good bone repair material. However, its clinical applications are restricted because of its inherent brittleness and poor shape ability. Fortunately, introduction of some kind of polymers can bring satisfactory mechanical properties and make the materials keep stable shapes. Furthermore, porous structures can be made for the cells to grow in so as to accelerate new bone formation. Therefore, nHA/polymer composites are very promising bone repair materials.
