Vol. 10, Issue 3 (2024)

The local delivery of antibiotics in the treatment of chronic osteomyelitis has been used safely and effectively in decades. Multiple methods of drug delivery have been developed for the purpose of both infection treatment and prophylaxis. The mainstay of treatment in the chronic osteomyelitis in this application over last 20 years has been non-biodegradable PMMA, which has the advantages of excellent elution characteristics and structural support properties. Biodegradable materials such as calcium sulphate and bone graft substitutes have been used more recently for this purpose.These methods decrease the need of operative procedure in the management of chronic long standing infections. Antibiotic beads are being used since a long time for management of chronic osteomyelitis and many new techniques have been developed for the management of same. Other biodegradable implants, including synthetic polymers, are not yet approved for this use bot demonstrated potential in laboratory investigations.