Wrinkles Predict Bone Fracture Risk
Reported June 7, 2011
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Each year, approximately 7.9
million bone fractures occur in the United States alone,
costing an estimated $70 billion. Of these, 10 to 20
percent fail to heal. However, researchers at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of
Medicine have discovered through an animal study that
transplantation of adult stem cells enriched with a
bone-regenerating hormone can help mend bone fractures
that are not healing properly.
The researchers found that stem cells manufactured with
the regenerative hormone insulin-like growth factor (IGF-I)
become bone cells and also help the cells within broken
bones repair the fracture, which speeds up the healing
process. Fractures that do not heal during the normal
timeframe are called non-union fractures. The team used
an animal model of a non-union fracture, called a
"knockout" mouse that lacks the ability to heal broken
bones.
They took adult stem cells from bone marrow of mice and
engineered the cells to express IGF-I. Then they
transplanted the treated cells into “knockout” mice with
a fracture of the tibia, the long bone of the leg. The
researchers showed through computed tomography scanning,
that the treated mice had better fracture healing than
did mice either left untreated or treated only with stem
cells. The treated mice had more bone bridging the
fracture gap, and the new bone was three to four times
stronger.
"More excitingly, we found that stem cells empowered
with IGF-I restored the formation of a new bone in a
mouse lacking the ability to repair broken bones. This
is the first evidence that stem cell therapy can address
a deficiency of fracture repair," Anna Spagnoli, M.D.,
the study’s team leader and associate professor of
pediatrics and biomedical engineering at UNC Chapel
Hill, was quoted saying.
The study’s discovery “is a crucial step toward
developing a stem cell-based treatment for patients with
fracture non-unions. I think this treatment will be
feasible to start testing in patients in a few years,”
Spagnoli said.
SOURCE: The Endocrine Society's 93rd Annual Meeting in
Boston, Massachusetts, June 5, 2011. |
