Ceramic microspheres for biomedical applications

Ceramic microspheres are expected to be useful for cancer treatment and antibacterial treatment. In this article, several attempts to prepare ceramic microspheres for such biomedical applications are described. Ceramic microspheres containing large amounts of yttrium or phosphorus are useful for radiotherapy of cancers, since they can be activated to become β-emitters by neutron bombardment. Ferrimagnetic microspheres are useful as thermoseeds for hyperthermia of cancers because they can heat cancers locally by hysteresis loss of the ferrimagnetic materials under an alternating magnetic field. Silver-containing silica glass microspheres are useful as antibacterial materials when mixed with organic polymers, particularly fine-spun polymer fibers.