Abstract

The treatment of bone defects is clinically challenging due to the multi-stage surgical procedures, which have to separately address hemostasis and bone regeneration, and the hardly visible process of bone formation and implant degradation. Herein, inspired by the structure of natural bone and the plasticity of beeswax, we developed a thermally adaptive and noninvasive-visualizable bone scaffold (TRANS) by integrating a thermosensitive and CT-visualizable chitin derivative (IQCH) with nano-hydroxyapatite (nHA), followed by infiltration with beeswax-like molecules (PEG). Upon heating, TRANS becomes soft and plastic to enable the precise fitting of irregular defects. When the temperature decreases to a physiological level, the scaffold recovers its high mechanical strength to be rigid, ensuring stable fixation and effective hemostasis. During bone regeneration, the PEG within TRANS is dynamically absorbed to restore the porous architecture, thereby allowing stem cell infiltration, proliferation, and osteogenic differentiation. In vivo, TRANS effectively seals defect sites and promotes bone regeneration in rat tibial defects, exhibiting synchronized scaffold degradation and new bone formation under CT monitoring. This study presents a biomimetic scaffold that dynamically achieves integrated hemostasis, osteogenesis, and real-time imaging, offering a promising strategy for the treatment of bone defects.