Abstract. Titanium (Ti) is the most widely implanted orthopedic material. However, current formulations of Ti have an average orthopedic implant functional lifetime of only 10–15 years. While there are many reasons why orthopedic implants fail, one is a lack of initial and sustained integration into juxtaposed bone. To improve the cytocompatibility properties of Ti for orthopedic applications, parallel multiwalled carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were grown from the pores of anodized nanotubular Ti by a chemical vapor deposition process in the present study. The results of this study provided evidence, for the first time, that osteoblast (bone forming cell) functions (specifically, alkaline phosphatase activity and calcium deposition) were significantly greater on CNTs grown from anodized Ti than on anodized Ti without CNTs and currently-used Ti in orthopedics for up to 21 days. In summary, this study showed that bone growth could possibly be enhanced on currently-used Ti implants with protruding CNTs and, thus, they should be further studied for orthopedic applications.

Print publication: Issue 36 (12 September 2007)
Received 7 March 2007, in final form 13 June 2007
Published 14 August 2007