Bone and Cartilage Substitute The World Health Authority has decreed that 2000–2010 will be the Bone and Joint Decade, and this is now being supported by the United Nations. The rationale for this is that joint diseases account for half of all chronic conditions in people over 65; back pain is the second leading cause of sick leave; and osteoporotic fractures have doubled in the last decade, so that 40% of all women over 50 will eventually suffer from one. It is estimated that 25% of health expenditure in developing countries will be spent on trauma-related care by the end of the decade, and many children are deprived of normal development by crippling diseases and deformities.
Many of these cases require bone graft substitutes to repair the injury or defect. There are currently on the order of 500,000 bone grafts performed annually in the U.S. For example, there were an estimated…
