Antibacterial Coatings on Titanium Implants

Titanium and titanium alloys are key biomedical materials because of their good biocompatibility and mechanical properties. Nevertheless, infection on and around titanium implants still remains a problem which is usually difficult to treat and may lead to eventual implant removal. As a result, preventive measures are necessary to mitigate implant-frelated infection. One important strategy is to render the implant surface antibacterial by impeding the formation of a biofilm. A number of approaches have been proposed for this purpose and they are reviewed in this article. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater 91B: 470-480, 2009