Historical Development of implants

The history of implant materials can be traced to 3000 b.c. when the Incas of Peru used gold and silver to repair trephination defects. Petronius offered an early description of the use of alloplastic materials in 1565 when he described closure of a cranial defect with a gold plate. Over the next 300 years, the use of implants was sporadic and often complicated by infection. The use of synthetic materials as bioimplants did not become widespread until after the 1940s, when advances in biomaterial science led to the development of numerous materials suitable for implantation

Implants are widely used in various clinical disciplines to replace or stabilize organs. The challenge for the future is to apply implant materials to specifically control the biology of the surrounding tissue for repair and regeneration. This field of research is highly interdisciplinary and combines scientists from technical and life sciences disciplines. To successfully apply materials for regenerative processes in the body, the understanding of the mechanisms at the interface between cells or tissues and the artificial material is of critical importance.