Patent ID: 8101268

Claim:
A method of fabricating a bone substitute material, the method comprising the steps of: providing a foam material having an open cell structure, distorting the shape of the foam material and holding the material in a distorted shape, coating the walls of the cells of the foam material with a ceramic slip, removing the foam material, and sintering the ceramic slip to form a bone substitute material, wherein the bone substitute material comprises a porous sintered ceramic, the porous sintered ceramic being composed from hydroxyapatite or tricalcium phosphate, and the porous sintered ceramic having approximately the form of a positive image of an open celled foam material, the walls defining the cells within the material being hollow such that each wall defining cells has two wall ceramic material layers and a hollow cavity extending between the two wall ceramic material layers, wherein the cellular structure is orientated such that the cells are elongated, having a length in one direction greater than their lengths in the two other perpendicular directions and wherein the bone substitute material has a breaking stress of more than 1 MPa.