BIOCERAMICS

ceramic products or components employed in medical and dental applications, mainly as implants and replacements. This article briefly describes the principal ceramic materials and surveys the uses to which they are put in medical and dental applications. For an explanation of important issues in biomedical uses of all materials (including ceramics), see the article materials science: Materials for medicine. Additional reading Specific information on bioceramics is provided by Gary Fischman, Alexis Clare, and Larry L. Hench (eds.), Bioceramics: Materials and Applications (1995), conference papers; and the subsection by Larry L. Hench, Medical and Scientific Products, in Theodore J. Reinhart (ed.), Engineered Materials Handbook, vol. 4, Ceramics and Glasses, ed. by Samuel J. Schneider (1991), pp. 100714. The section titled Structural Applications for Technical, Engineering, and Advanced Ceramics, pp. 9591014 in the Reinhart work cited above, presents an overview of advanced structural ceramics. Thomas O. Mason