Non-biodegradable materials can basically meet the demand of clinical orthopaedics application. But, with the development of orthopedics technology, there is a higher demand for orthopedics material performance in the clinical. Biodegradable materials gradually become one of research focuses in the clinical orthopaedics, because of their excellent mechanical properties and biological properties.Recently, there are a wide variety of degradable orthopedics materials, which can be mainly divided into four categories: degradable medical metal materials, degradable polymer materials, inorganic materials and composite materials. Biodegradable medical metal material is an ideal internal fixation material. Biodegradable polymer materials and inorganic materials are used for stitching, filling and scaffold materials. Composite material has the advantages of other three materials, which is the focus of future research. By consulting a large number of overseas and domestic research reports in recent years, new progress and problems demanding prompt solution in biodegradable materials are summarized, through the above four categories. In addition, the trends of their development are discussed.