**5. Applications**

From ancient times there has been an interest in repairing and replacing parts of the human body that present problems and this has been done using various materials more or less suitable depending on the information available at that time [26].

Due to the evolution of science and equipment today, the medical world is in a period of transition from the healing of existing organs to their replacement with synthetic materials obtained in high-performance laboratories [27].

Bone replacement is in the 2nd place as a tissue replacement procedure, in the first place being the blood transfusion. Yearly are done more than 2 million bone reconstructions in orthopedics, neurosurgery and dentistry.

A wide variety of biomaterials are used in restorative medicine. The choice of material for a practical application in medicine remains a key factor in the design and development of medical implants and devices. Currently, more than 50 biomaterials (BIOGLASS 45S5®, CERABONE A-W®, TheraSphere®, Corglaes®, NovaBone®, NovaMin® etc.) of synthetic or natural origin are used in medicine, covering a wide variety of applications. The tables below (**Tables 4** and **5**) show some of the applications of bioactive glass and glass ceramics due to their welldefined bioactive properties [28].

**Figure 6** illustrate some examples of commercially glasses, available on the market. All research leads to a great potential of BGs in medicine but it is not fully exploited yet and the next years a rapid growth is expected.

*New Trends in Bioactive Glasses for Bone Tissue: A Review DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.100567*


#### **Table 4.**

*Applications for BIOGLASS 45S5.*


#### **Table 5.**

*Applications for CERABONE A-W.*

**Figure 6.** *Examples of commercially produced glasses, available on the market [29–33].*
