Patent ID: 8702716

Claim:
A method of treating a lesion or fracture in bone tissue, comprising: (a) providing a polymer composition comprising a side chain crystallizable polymer, wherein: (i) the polymer composition has a solid state when within a first temperature range, the first temperature range selected to substantially correspond to temperatures generally found in anatomical bone structures of living mammals, the solid state having mechanical properties suitable for supporting and/or augmenting a bone lesion or fracture; (ii) the polymer composition has a second transition temperature range, the second transition temperature range being above the first temperature range; and (iii) the polymer composition has an extrudable fluid state when in a third temperature range, the third temperature range being above the second temperature range; the third temperature range selected to correspond to therapeutically acceptable temperatures for the bone tissue being treated, the extrudable fluid state in the third temperature range having a viscosity sufficiently low to permit injection into the bone tissue being treated; (b) providing a polymer delivery system operatively configured to heat a quantity of the polymer composition to the extrudable fluid state within the third temperature range and operatively configured to inject the resulting fluid polymer composition into the bone tissue being treated; (c) administering the fluid polymer composition by operating the polymer delivery system so as to inject the fluid polymer composition at least partially into the bone tissue being treated; and (d) transforming the resulting injected fluid polymer composition to the polymer composition in the solid state by permitting cooling of the injected fluid polymer composition from within the third temperature range to within the first temperature range so as to configure the resulting solid polymer composition to provide support and/or augmentation to the bone lesion or fracture being treated.