Porosity and compressive strength of PLA-based scaffold coated with hydroxyapatite-gelatin to reconstruct mandibula: A literature review

Ameloblastoma is one of odontogenic tumours that is classified as benign, aggressive, and destructive. Mandibular tumours potentially cause bone disruption or damage, so it is necessary to do a resection to remove the infected part. Treatment done by resection may cause defects starting from the gap in the alveolar bone to the discontinuity of the mandible. Thus, it is necessary to reconstruct the mandible using a scaffold. Scaffold is made by using the PLA 3D-printing with the Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) method. PLA is non-bioactive and hydrophobic, so the surface needs to be modified by coating PLA with hydroxyapatite (HA) and gelatine. This article aims to examine the effect of PLA surface modification using HA-Gelatine through a review article. The searching strategy for articles is by using databases of internationally reputable journals with certain keywords. From the search, journals were obtained (with status Q3, Q2 and Q1) as reference journals in this review. Literature review shows that the addition of hydroxyapatite can improve the bioactive properties of PLA, while the addition of gelatine can increase its hydrophilicity properties. Therefore, HA-Gelatin coating on 3D PLA has the potential to be used as a scaffold for mandibular reconstruction.