Bone putty can save a shattered limb
A multi-institutional research team has come up with a substance they call “bone putty,” which can help regenerate shattered bones. The substance could be especially beneficial for soldiers wounded in combat.
Also known as “fracture putty,” the substance can save soldiers with shattered bones from amputation by stabilizing fractures and giving the bone time to regenerate. The substance is designed to be placed in and around shattered bone material in non-joint injuries. It provides a load-bearing, osteoconductive, structure much like the original bone, which makes natural regenerative growth possible, according to a CNET story. After the bone itself heals, the putty degrades into harmless, absorbable by-products which the body removes by itself as a natural process.
Principal researcher Mauro Ferrari says, “The fracture putty will serve as a bioactive scaffold and will be able to substitute for the damaged bone. At the same time, the putty will facilitate the formation of natural bone and self-healing in the surrounding soft tissue through the attraction of the patient’s own stem cells. The putty will have the texture of modeling clay so that it can be molded in any shape in order to be used in many different surgical applications, including the reconnection of separated bones and the replacement of missing bones.”
The development is the result of a two year project which involves researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Center and M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Harvard University, the Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine at Northwestern University, an others. It is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The putty, which is being called “the ultimate convergence of materials science, mechanics, and orthopedics,” will first be tested on animals. After testing, it could lead to the use of ‘bone putty’ in emergency rooms to treat civilians injured in traffic accidents and other traumatic events as well as for injuries to soldiers.
Traumatic, compound bone fractures are very difficult to treat on the battlefield or in the emergency room, often requiring multiple surgeries with bone screws, plates, and rods to cobble together grafts with healthy bone. They also take a long time to heal. Bone putty could have the patient up and around in as little as a week, according to the researchers. Fracture putty could therefore lead to radically improved healing techniques for truly bone-shattering events.
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