Skin Integrated Implant with Porous Titanium Frame
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current devices for long-term skin interface, such as limb prosthetics and cosmetic piercings, face challenges with infection and inadequate skin integration due to poor device-skin interfaces, particularly with titanium implants, which lack sufficient porosity for skin fibroblast growth and strength, leading to increased infection risks.
Innovation Solution
A titanium implant with a solid three-dimensional frame filled with compacted and sintered particles, providing 20-100% volume fraction and 30-50% porosity, along with a silver-coated surface, to facilitate skin cell growth and increase strength, while minimizing bacterial infection through controlled bactericidal effects.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If porous material is used to improve skin integration, then skin cell growth is enhanced, but the strength of the abutment decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention uses a composite structure combining solid titanium frame elements with porous titanium particles. The solid frame provides mechanical strength while the porous particles (with 30-50% porosity) enable skin cell infiltration and integration. This composite approach resolves the contradiction by integrating both strength-providing and skin-integration-providing components in a single abutment structure.
2Reliability
If higher porosity is used for skin fibroblast growth, then skin tissue integration is improved, but the structural integrity deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The invention applies different porosity levels to different regions and components. The solid frame maintains low porosity for structural integrity, while the填充 porous particles provide high porosity (30-50%) for skin tissue integration. This local differentiation of quality allows the structure to simultaneously achieve both structural stability and biological integration.
3Strength
If solid abutment is used to maintain strength, then structural integrity is preserved, but skin cell infiltration is hindered
Solution Approach 1:
The invention incorporates porous titanium particles (20-500 microns size, 30-50% porosity) as the filling material within the abutment structure. These porous materials allow skin fibroblasts to infiltrate and grow within the abutment, establishing reliable skin-device integration while maintaining adequate structural strength through the supporting frame.
4Reliability
If titanium implant is used for osseointegration, then bone integration is achieved, but device-skin interface infection risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention converts the previously harmful device-skin interface into a beneficial integrated structure. By enabling skin tissue to grow within and throughout the porous abutment, the interface that previously allowed infection pathways now becomes a barrier. The skin integration itself converts the infection risk into a protective effect, as the integrated skin tissue seals around the implant.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution enhances skin integration, reduces infection risks, and maintains structural integrity for long-term use by promoting skin cell growth within the implant and providing a safe barrier against infection, enabling effective transfer of vital substances and forces.
Implementation Method 1
The frame is filled in by a meshed structure and the compacted and sintered particles of the titanium or other biocompatible material
Implementation Method 2
The outer surface of the device is coated with an intermittent layer of fine silver, said intermittent layer having thickness in the range of about 1 and 3 microns, and covering about 10%-15% of the total outer surface area
Data Source
AI summary
A skin integrated device for implantation with an improved device-skin interface for the ingrowths of skin cells and tissues throughout the pores, having a solid frame, which may also be permeable.The characteristics of pore size, porosity and size of the compressed and sintered particles constitute a long-term skin integrated device for transfer of vital and therapeutic substances, and necessary forces and moments from the outer delivery and prosthetics devices to the human body. The ingrowth of the skin along with the intermittent layer of fine silver provides a barrier for infection.