Preliminary evaluation of selected biologic properties of TiO2 and SiO2 layers on metallic substrates

Despite of applying modern biomaterials during constructing long term orthopaedic implants, in clinical practice there are still present wide range of complications, particularly concerning matter of implant - tissue interactions. Since interaction between implant and living tissue depends mainly on biomaterial surface features, we decided to modify orthopaedic alloys to improve their biological properties. The object of this experiment was in vitro evaluation of selected biological properties, particularly cytotoxicity of titanium alloy and 316L stainless steel substrates coated with SiO2 or TiO2 thin films. The coatings were synthesized by sol-gel method. Each samples was placed into mouse fibroblast culture. The cultures in presence of tested materials were maintained for three days. We found no distinct toxic effect of tested biomaterials. We noticed increase of fibroblast proliferation in cultures with uncoated titanium and particularly SiO2 coated titanium plates.