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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document, dated 7 January 2010, was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office. It is one of a series of advanced technology reports produced in FY 2009 under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications program. The report reviews biomaterials used in medicine, including silicones, Teflon, biodegradable polymers, hydrogels, titanium, ceramics and tissue constructs, and applications such as stents, joints, contact lenses, drug delivery and dialysis. It concludes that most innovation lies in new ways to apply existing materials.
From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 1/7/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD is a broad survey of biomaterials, including metals, polymers, ceramics, glasses, and composites designed to interact with living tissue, and argues that their value depends mainly on biocompatibility, reliability, and careful matching of material properties to specific medical uses. The report reviews major application areas including biosensors, implants, cardiovascular devices, contact lenses, drug delivery systems, tissue constructs, titanium devices, and dialysis membranes, emphasizing that no single biomaterial works best in every setting. Its overall conclusion is that biomaterials are already foundational to a large medical-device industry and save or improve millions of lives, but that progress tends to be slow because safety testing is stringent; as a result, most advances come from improved ways of applying established materials such as silicone, Teflon, biodegradable polymers, ceramics, and titanium in new devices and clinical settings rather than from radically new substances.
UNCLASSIFIED/ /FOR OPPICIAL Y§liii Ql'IL¥ An appropriate selection of the polymer matrix is necessary in order to develop a successful drug delivery system. The most commonly used polymers for this application, polylactide (PLA) and poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA), have been used in biomedical applications for more than 20 years and are known to be biodegradable, biocompatible, and nontoxic. A vast amount of literature is available on the characterization of these polymers and their biodegradation and drug-release properties. MEDICAL TITANIUM AS A BIOMATERIAL Titanium metal has qualities of strength, inertness, and a biological compatibility that make it desirable as a biomaterial. Essentially all pacemakers, neurostimulators, and various other implanted medical devices use titanium as a packaging case material. Titanium metal exposed briefly to the atmosphere oxidizes to form a microscopically thin layer of titania (titanium oxide) . Titania is a hard, adherent, and inert ceramic-like compound and is thought to be largely responsible for titanium's acceptability in biomedical applications where metal corrosion in warm, salty body fluids ordinarily would be a problem. Titanium is used for its high strength in replacement hip and knee joints . In these cases, it is important how the metal integrates with living tissue and bone because load must be transferred from the metal to the bone. Titanium generally does exceedingly well and is used as the metal of choice in nearly all biomedical applications where high strength and impact resistance is important. Titanium has a particular ability among the various metals that might otherwise be chosen in that it can integrate itself well with living bone. The recognition of this dates back to 1952, when Swedish Professor Per-Ingvar Branemark conducted an experiment in which he stud ied blood flow in living rabbit bone. The bone was fixed in a roughly machined titanium holder. At the conclusion of the experiment, after many days, he found that the bone had integrated so completely with the titanium that removing it was impossible. He called this osseointegration and saw the possibilities for human use. Figure 29 shows a photomicrograph of a titanium-bone interface. The close approximation of the titanium (black) to the tissue is an indicator of a close-metal tissue integ ration. Osseointegration was first implemented in dentistry to fixate teeth. It is now also is used for head and jaw reconstruction. UNCLASSIFIED/ ,6FOA OFFICIOL Uili OPIL¥ 22
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 32 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.