Degradable, absorbable or resorbable-what is the best grammatical modifier for an implant that is eventually absorbed by the body?

The adoption of grammatical modifier for implants or other kinds of biomaterials eventually absorbed by the body has been a long-standing confusing issue, and there are diverse terms in the large fields of research, which not only causes the difficulties when searching on the Internet, but also blurs the meaning and boundaries for researchers. Prior unification attempts at laws/standards set the basis for such research fields towards researching, labeling, marketing and instructions for use. Considering this, the typical grammatical modifiers biodegradable, resorbable, absorbable, along with their noun forms used in the decades of scientific research have been reviewed and explained, interdisciplinary in chemistry, ecology, materials science, biology, microbiology, medicine, and based on usage customs, laws, standards and markets. The term biodegradable has been not only used in biomaterials but also in ecology waste management, biomedicine and even natural environment. Meanwhile, the term resorbable has long been used in biological reaction (osteoclast driven bone resorption), but is inappropriate for implants that do not carry the potential to grow back into their original form. The term absorbable focuses more on the host metabolism to the foreign biodegradation products of the implanted material/device compared with the term degradable/biodegradable. Meanwhile the coherence and normalization of the term absorbable carried by its own in laws and standards contributes as well. In general, the authors consider the term absorbable to be the best grammatical modifier with respect to other adjectives which share the same inherence. A further internationally unified usage is proposed by us.