Doctors will discharge a boy injured by falling snow

The developments of scientists from Tomsk Polytechnic University for implantology are successfully used in veterinary medicine. Today, titanium implants with bioactive coatings are already used to treat pets by doctors at the Novosibirsk veterinary clinic “BEST”. The first four-legged patients for whose treatment the Tomsk development was used were cats Thomas and Kutuzov, the press service of the university reports.

The research team, led by Sergei Tverdokhlebov, associate professor of the Department of Experimental Physics at the TPU Physics Institute, is engaged in modifying the properties of materials used for the production of implants. One of the research team’s developments—titanium implants with a bioactive coating—has already been successfully used in veterinary medicine.

The first patients to try the Tomsk innovation were domestic cats Thomas and Kutuzov.

“One of the cats was missing a front paw, the other was missing a back paw. Their owners contacted the BEST veterinary clinic, and the doctors suggested they try a treatment method using implants with our coating. The owners agreed and the animals were operated on. Now both of them are under observation; veterinarians systematically give them X-rays and tomography, the results of which show that the implants have successfully taken root. Four-legged patients, according to doctors, feel as comfortable with artificial “paws” as if they were their own,” says Sergei Tverdokhlebov.
After Thomas and Kutuzov, patient No. 3 was a ginger cat with a fracture of two hind limbs at once.

“With such severe injuries, this cat could only move independently with the help of a special wheelchair for animals. Our development allowed him to avoid such a fate,” says Sergei Tverdokhlebov.

According to veterinarians, the TPU implants in the red patient have taken root just as well as in the previous two, and now he walks around the clinic quite confidently on all four legs.

To date, polytechnicians have manufactured about 40 titanium implants with bioactive coatings for the BEST clinic to meet the needs of veterinarians.

These coatings, made from calcium phosphates and other compounds, make the implants more similar to real bone. They are less likely to be rejected by the body, take root better and accelerate regeneration processes.

Let's add that today Russia celebrates Cat Day. This unofficial international holiday is celebrated around the world on different dates. In Russia, the holiday was first organized by the Moscow Cat Museum and the editors of the magazine and newspaper “Cat and Dog” in 2004.