Radiopaque Iodine-containing Bone Cement (2013)

Undergraduates: Hung Nguyen, Anne Jackson

Faculty Advisor: Valerie Ashby
Department: Chemistry

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The goal of this project is to develop an iodine-containing bone cement with high radiopacity, high processability, and low toxicity. The traditional methyl methacrylate (MMA) monomer is modified into 3-iodo-2,2-bis(iodomethyl)propyl methacrylate (IIPMA), a monomer with high content of stably attached iodine¿a strong X-ray absorbing element; this iodine content, in turn, provides radiopacity for the bone cement without the need for inorganic additives, which is the cause for weakened mechanical properties of the material. The modified monomer, IPPMA, is successfully synthesized using simple organic reactions and purifications. Copolymers of MMA and IIPMA can be made using solution chain-growth polymerization, yielding products with adjustable molecular weight (from 100,000 Da to 350,000 Da) and low polydispersity (averaging around 1.80); the polymerized material is found to be easily tunable, with scalable iodine content from 20% to 60% weight percent. Polymer beads are then made using solvent evaporation; these beads are used as the power part in the modified bone cement. In the next steps, characterizations will be carried out, including properties such as radiopacity, cytotoxicity, and mechanical properties.