Luminescent Hydroxyapatite Doped with Rare Earth Elements for Biomedical Applications

One new, promising approach in the medical field is represented by hydroxyapatite doped with luminescent materials for biomedical luminescence imaging. The use of hydroxyapatite-based luminescent materials is an interesting area of research because of the attractive characteristics of such materials, which include biodegradability, bioactivity, biocompatibility, osteoconductivity, non-toxicity, and their non-inflammatory nature, as well their accessibility for surface adaptation. It is well known that hydroxyapatite, the predominant inorganic component of bones, serves a substantial role in tissue engineering, drug and gene delivery, and many other biomedical areas. Hydroxyapatite, to the detriment of other host matrices, has attracted substantial attention for its ability to bind to luminescent materials with high efficiency. Its capacity to integrate a large assortment of substitutions for Ca2+, PO43−, and/or OH− ions is attributed to the versatility of its apatite structure. This paper summarizes the most recently developed fluorescent materials based on hydroxyapatite, which use rare earth elements (REEs) as dopants, such as terbium (Tb3+), erbium (Er3+), europium (Eu3+), lanthanum (La3+), or dysprosium (Dy3+), that have been developed in the biomedical field.