Facile Fabrication of 3D-Printed Porous Ti6Al4V Scaffolds with a Sr-CaP Coating for Bone Regeneration

To improve osseointegration caused by the stress-shielding effect and the inert nature of titanium-based alloys, in this work, we successfully constructed a strontium calcium phosphate (Sr-CaP) coating on three-dimensional (3D)-printed Ti6Al4V scaffolds to address this issue. The energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) results indicated that the coatings with and without Sr doping mainly consisted of CaHPO4. The bonding strength of Sr doping coating met the required ISO 13 779-4-2018 standard (≥15 MPa). The in vitro results suggested that the Sr-CaP-modified Ti6Al4V scaffolds were found to effectively promote mice bone-marrow stem cell (mBMSC) adhesion, spreading, and osteogenesis. The in vivo experiments also showed that the Sr-CaP-modified Ti6Al4V scaffolds could significantly improve bone regeneration and osseointegration. More importantly, Sr-doped CaP-coated Ti6Al4V scaffolds were found to accelerate bone healing in comparison to CaP-coated Ti6Al4V scaffolds. The Sr-CaP-modified Ti6Al4V scaffolds are considered a promising strategy to develop bioactive surfaces for enhancing the osseointegration between the implant and bone tissue.