MINERALS and metals are essential to the technologies that define our modern medical world. Minerals and metals are key to many of the medicinal innovations we see today.
While many are not aware of this fact, minerals and metals are the building blocks of the life-saving medical devices and medications that doctors and patients rely on every day.
Not only is copper found in MRI scanners, copper is also critical to inhibiting the spread of the influenza virus. Copper is vital in other medical equipment due to its anti-microbial properties.
Another mineral with significant medical benefits is silver. Silver is an active ingredient in medical products as it prevents bacterial growth and accelerates the healing process. Because of this, silver is a present ingredient in a number of antibiotics. In fact, a small amount of silver makes E. coli bacteria significantly more sensitive to commonly prescribed antibiotics like penicillin. Titanium is resistant to bacteria and is a critical component in surgical equipment.
How many of you have heard of the stent? A stent is a small, expandable tube. During a procedure called angioplasty, the stent is inserted into a coronary artery (in the heart) and expanded using a small balloon. A stent is used to open a narrowed or clotted artery.
The materials used in coronary stents must be flexible, supportive, capable of expansion, and biocompatible. Typically, foreign materials implanted into the human body results in trauma, inflammation, immune response and eventual healing and/or scarring. Materials that are not biocompatible can induce many complications, including cytotoxic chemical buildup and chronic inflammation. That is why it is very critical that implant materials are biocompatible. Materials that are not biocompatible can cause one of any number of complications. The ideal coronary stent surface does not cause a reaction in the human body.
Most stents are built on a stainless steel platform, the least-expensive stent material available. Unfortunately, stainless steel is not fully compatible with the human body. In addition, stainless steel can pose difficulties related to some types of imaging, such as magnetic resonance. As such, researchers are working to develop alternative platform materials like gold, titanium, cobalt-chromium alloy, tantalum alloy, nitinol and several types of polymer.
For quite some time, it has been known that gold is biocompatible and usually inert, as well as highly visible. Cobalt-chromium was first developed for use in watch springs. Newer variations have proven to be effective stent materials. Tantalum is a shiny, flexible, and highly radio-opaque metal. While it is more brittle than stainless steel, tantalum has proven to be quite resistant to corrosion.
Nitinol (55 percent nickel and 45 percent titanium and named from the Nickel Titanium Naval Ordinance Laboratory, sometimes called NiTi) is highly biocompatible, decreases the rate of corrosion, is very flexible and has excellent shape memory when heated to a certain temperature.
Without these minerals, our medical industry would be severely lacking in the technologies and medications it relies on to save lives. Responsible mining to obtain these minerals will ensure the preservation of the medical industry and will continue to support advanced medical innovations.
Without medicines, medical technologies and new innovations, the treatment and cure of common illnesses, including emerging illnesses and diseases, will become very difficult. Major surgical procedures will also be next to impossible. With responsible mining, we will be able to produce minerals, metals and their by-products that will be essential for life.
Architectural designer Mark Perret said, "Doctors save lives by constructing a healthy life, designers save lives by constructing a life worth living."
I dare say that responsible miners make it possible for the doctors and designers to practice their craft and save those lives!
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