Orthopedics Articles & Stories

A condition in which there is radically abnormal bone growth stems from bone-forming cells that line blood vessels deep within skeletal muscle tissue, not, as would have been expected, from muscle stem cells, according to a recent study. It also showed that cells involved in the body’s immune response to inflammation unleash bone-producing proteins that convert muscle into bone.
   
The study, carried out by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the University of Connecticut, was published in the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.

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Injecting a patient’s own bone-marrow stem cells into the spine using multiple routes helps to restore some function and quality of life to victims of spinal cord injury with no objectionable side effects, a recent study revealed.
   
The findings, published in the journal Cell Transplantation, were the result of a joint investigation by researchers at DaVinci Biosciences of Costa Mesa, Calif., and Hospital Luis Vernaza in Ecuador.

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The very joint implants that bring pain relief and restore freedom of motion to patients’ extremities can be their own undoing, setting off a metal-induced immunological defense mechanism that causes the implants to loosen and fail, according to a recent study.
   
The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and to be published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, was conducted by researchers at Rush University Medical Center. It won an award for scientific merit from the Orthopaedic Research Society.

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A new drug inhibits a protein necessary for the formation and function of cells that break down bone, a recent study showed, a development that may have important repercussions for the treatment of diseases that involve bone loss, such as osteoporosis, periodontitis and arthritis.
   
The study, which was performed on mice by Soo-young Lee and colleagues at Ewha Women’s University in the Republic of Korea, was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

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A study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation describes mouse experiments that demonstrate how a new experimental drug interferes with the action of the mouse protein RANK, thus affecting bone resorption rates.

Let’s break that down into language that makes sense to non-research scientists. RANK is an acronym that stands for “receptor activator of NFkB.” RANK, along with RANK-L (the “L” stands for ligand – a molecule that forms a complex around a central atom, are key regulators of bone remodeling and are essential for the development and activation of osteoclasts. Osteoclasts are the cells that engage in bone removal.

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A hormone naturally produced in the body seems to stimulate stem cells to promote bone growth, a recent study revealed. The findings may hold hope for developing new treatments for osteoporosis, a disorder in which the bones lose calcium and become dangerously brittle, especially in older people. The condition affects one in four women over the age of 50, according to the World Health Organization.
   
The experiment with the hormone, known as interferon gamma, is discussed in a paper published in the journal Stem Cells, and was performed by scientists at the Aging Bone Research Center of the University of Sydney’s Nepean Clinical School, and the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center.

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Older dental patients should not stop taking osteoporosis medications over fear of developing a rare condition in which portions of the jawbone die, a new public-information brochure says.
   
Fear has been rising recently over the fact that some patients who have taken bisphosphonates, a group of drugs that work to reverse osteoporosis, a condition of low bone density, have developed bisphosphonate-associated osteonecrosis of the jaw. The malady, in which the bone of the jaw necrotizes, or dies, is rare but serious, and can badly damage the jawbone. It’s diagnosed in patients who have an area of exposed bone in the jaw that lasts for at least eight weeks, who have no history of head or neck radiation therapy and who are taking, now or in the past, a bisphosphonate drug.

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- Moderate Drinking Seems to Improve Bone Density

Drinking a glass or two of wine or beer a day appears to build bone density even better than calcium does, a recent study demonstrated – though drinking more, and consuming spirits instead of low-alcohol drinks, has the opposite effect.

The research, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was done by Katherine Tucker of Tufts University in Boston and her colleagues.

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    Contradicting long-standing traditional notions that sprained ankles can best be healed through tubular bandages and “walking it off,” a recent study showed that full-immobilization plaster casts work far better in recovery from sprains.
   
     The research, done in Britain on 600 patients and published in the journal The Lancet, found that treatment of sprains with a 10-day below-knee cast was superior to the standard tubular bandage remedy. About 23,000 people a day are treated for ankle sprains in U.S. emergency rooms. In Britain, the injury accounts for 3 percent to 5 percent of all emergency room cases.

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When seatbelts and airbags are used together, victims of motor-vehicle accidents suffer spine fractures at a 33 percent lower rate than those using neither device, a recent study has shown. And use of the two restraints in combination cuts the risk of suffering severe spine fracture by 59 percent.

In addition, using seatbelts or airbags separately raises the spine-fracture incidence slightly.
   
The study, which was reported in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine, was performed using data from 20,276 vehicle-crash victims, including drivers and front-seat passengers age 16 and above, who were released from the hospital in Wisconsin from 1994 through 2002.

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