Bone wax is used to help mechanically control bleeding from bone surfaces during surgical procedures.

It is made of beeswax

Beeswax

Beeswax is a natural wax produced in the bee hive of honey bees of the genus Apis. It is mainly esters of fatty acids and various long chain alcohols...

 with a softening agent such as paraffin or vasoline and is smeared across the bleeding edge of the bone, blocking the holes and causing immediate bone hemostasis

Bone hemostasis

Bone hemostasis is the process of controlling the bleeding from bone.Bone is a living vascular organ containing channels for blood and bone marrow. When a bone is cut during surgery bleeding can be a difficult problem to control, especially in the highly vascular bones of the spine and sternum...

 through a tamponade

Tamponade

Tamponade is the closure or blockage as if by a tampon especially to stop bleeding.Tamponade is a useful method of stopping a hemorrhage...

 effect. Bone wax is supplied in sterile sticks, and most often requires softening before it can be applied.

The FDA has recently approved a new water soluble bone hemostasis material called Ostene, which is designed to look and feel like bone wax. This material comprises a sterile mixture of water-soluble alkylene oxide copolymers, derived from ethylene oxide

Ethylene oxide

Ethylene oxide, also called oxirane, is the organic compound with the formula . It is a cyclic ether. This means that it is composed of two alkyl groups attached to an oxygen atom in a cyclic shape . This colorless flammable gas with a faintly sweet odor is the simplest epoxide, a three-membered...

 and propylene oxide

Propylene oxide

Propylene oxide is an organic compound with the molecular formula CH3CHCH2O. This colourless volatile liquid is produced on a large scale industrially, its major application being its use for the production of polyether polyols for use in making polyurethane plastics...

. These copolymers have a long history in the medical and pharmaceutical fields, and they are considered inert

Inert

-Chemistry:In chemistry, the term inert is used to describe a substance that is not chemically reactive.The noble gases were previously known as inert gases because of their perceived lack of participation in any chemical reactions...

. These compounds are not metabolized, but eliminated from the body unchanged.
It is anticipated that with the introduction of these new hemostatic materials, the incidence of surgical bone infections, nonunion

Nonunion

Nonunion is permanent failure of healing following a broken bone.Nonunion is a serious complication of a fracture and may occur when the fracture moves too much, has a poor blood supply or gets infected. Patients who smoke have a higher incidence of nonunion. The normal process of bone healing is...

 and inflammatory

Inflammation

Inflammation is part of the complex biological response of vascular tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. Inflammation is a protective attempt by the organism to remove the injurious stimuli and to initiate the healing process...

complications will decrease with time.