ABSTRACT
Biomaterial is defined as A synthetic material used to replace part of a living system or to function in intimate contact with living tissue and does not trigger any adverse biological reactions. The ultimate goal of a biomaterial is to improve the quality of life by restoring the function of natural living tissues and organs in the human body. The distinctive characteristic of a biomaterial is the biocompatibility, which is defined as “the ability of a biomaterial to perform its desired function with respect to a medical therapy, without eliciting any undesirable local or systemic effects in the recipient or beneficiary of that therapy, but generating the most appropriate beneficial cellular or tissue response in that specific situation, and optimising the clinically relevant performance of that therapy” (Williams 2008, p. 2952). Though the biomaterial field seems to be relatively young, archaeologists have found evidence of dental implants in humans as early as 200 A.D. Significant advancement in the biomaterials began at the end of World War II, and biomedical devices such as intraocular lenses, hip and knee prostheses, dental implants, artificial hearts, artificial kidneys, and vascular grafts saw great development during the past 60 years. Materials such as silicones, polyurethanes, hydroxyapatite, teflon, nylon, methacrylate, titanium, and stainless steel have been used successfully under in vivo conditions (Ratner et al. 2004).
