# Traditional Chinese Medicine-Loaded Hydrogels: An Emerging Strategy for the Treatment of Bone Infections

## TL;DR

This paper explores how hydrogels loaded with Traditional Chinese Medicine can offer a promising new approach for treating bone infections.

## Contribution

The paper introduces the novel use of TCM-loaded hydrogels for bone infection treatment, combining biocompatibility and multi-target therapy.

## Key findings

- Hydrogels offer adjustable drug release and good biocompatibility for bone infection treatment.
- TCM provides multi-target synergistic effects when combined with hydrogels.
- The strategy shows potential but faces challenges in clinical application.

## Abstract

Bone infection is a disease that seriously affects patients’ quality of life and physical health. Traditional treatment methods have many drawbacks. Hydrogels loaded with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), as an emerging treatment strategy, combine the advantages of good biocompatibility of hydrogels, adjustable drug release performance, and multi-target synergistic treatment of TCM, showing great application potential. This article elaborates in detail on the research progress of hydrogels loaded with TCM for the treatment of bone infections, including the classification and characteristics of hydrogels, the mechanism of action of TCM in the treatment of bone infections, the preparation methods of hydrogels loaded with TCM, application examples, advantages, and the challenges and prospects faced. The aim is to provide new ideas and references for the clinical treatment of bone infections.