ABSTRACT
Surgery involves the repair, resection, replacement, or improvement
of body parts and functions in numerous ways, so often it is seen as a
subspecialty of human engineering. Although the former statement
is not completely true, there are certainly many areas in which
surgical materials could be improved, but surgeons are generally
unaware of materials available for use, while materials scientists
do not know what surgeons require. As seen in the previous
chapters, the combination of tissue engineering and nanomaterials
has great potential for application to nearly every aspect of surgery.
Noteworthy, tissue engineering will allow cells or artificial organs
to be grown for specific uses, while nanotechnology will help
to ensure maximal biocompatibility; biosensors will be combined
with improved electrodes and pacing devices to control impaired
neurological functions. To explore all this area of interaction a
Pubmed search was conducted for articles concerning the themes
of “nanotechnology and surgery”: it retrieved a total of 905 articles
published since 1994. Accordingly, in this chapter we will review
some of the areaswhere surgeons, engineers, and nanotechnologists
have interacted in the past, and will discuss some of the most
pressing problems that remain to be solved in the upcoming
decades.
