الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 162 |  |  |
| | | from | 162 | | |
Abstract
The prevalence of musculoskeletal system injuries is greatly increasing each year. The proper healing of fractures without any complications is challenging under certain circumstances.
The delayed bone union or even the non-union may occur due to poor blood supply of bone fracture, presence of infection and in case of osteoporotic patients.
These complications greatly affect patient`s life and resemble a financial burden as its treatment most probably requires surgical intervention.
Bone grafting is considered as the gold standard treatment in surgical bone reconstruction operations. It can replace any damaged bone, augment healing of bone nonunion and encourage its regeneration.
However, the use of autologous bone grafts is restricted by some drawbacks as its limited quantity in addition to the complications that may occur during the additional surgical intervention that is essential for its harvesting. Moreover, the allogenic bone grafts carry the risk of infection transmission and immunological rejection.
Therefore, synthetic biomaterials can offer a good alternative that can avoid these drawbacks.
CPC is a biocompatible and biodegradable calcium-based artificial bone graft that is widely used to aid bone regeneration.
These self-setting cements can be easily prepared and inserted each patient`s bone fracture. They can form osteoconductive scaffolds for the newly formed bone.
In addition, they are characterized by being osteoinductive owing to the released calcium and phosphorous ions that induce calcification and enhance bone regeneration.
These cements can be enriched with growth factors, drugs as bisphosphonates or phytoestrogens as flavonoids to augment their osteoinductive properties and improve their bone healing potential. Quercetin (QT) is a multi-purposed plant-based natural compound, whose structure is similar to 17-ß-oestradiol and can have beneficial effects on bone healing. Multiple studies reported that QT can enhance osteoblastogenesis and inhibit osteoclastic activity with underlying various complicated mechanism of actions.
However, exploiting these beneficial bone conserving properties is restricted by the poor physical properties of QT.
This flavonoid is characterized by poor solubility and rapid degradation. Therefore, entrapping QT within an appropriate nanocarrier can overcome the shortcomings of the drug.
The present thesis aimed to develop and characterize different lipid nanosystems to encapsulate QT.
The choice of lipid-based nanoparticles was attributed to its biocompatibility and biodegradability.
In addition, it is possible to introduce bioactive excipients that can augment bone regeneration as phospholipids and olive oil.
The introduction of these QT-lipid nanoparticles into CPC can establish a targeted local treatment modality that can augment healing of bone fractures. The work in the current thesis was divided into four chapters