Injectable Biomaterials for Trabecular Bone Regeneration: Current Strategies and Future Directions

Injectable biomaterials have emerged as a promising solution for bone repair, offering tunable mechanical properties, minimally invasive delivery, and excellent biocompatibility. This work comprehensively explores the trabecular bone physiology, its intrinsic healing mechanism, and conventional surgical and non-surgical methods for bone fracture management. Furthermore, it provides a detailed discussion on injectable polymeric biomaterials, including their classification, advantages, biomedical applications and their role in bone scaffolding. Special attention is given to the emerging field of 4D materials, which exhibit responsiveness to external stimuli like light, temperature, and pH, offering significant potential in tissue engineering. Finally, some examples of clinical studies assessing the efficacy of injectable polymers in bone repair are presented, providing insights into future advancements in biomaterials for trabecular bone repair.