The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Vol 72, Issue 8 1144-1149, Copyright © 1990 by Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, Inc
Evidence for a humoral mechanism for enhanced osteogenesis after head injury
SM Bidner, IM Rubins, JV Desjardins, DJ Zukor and D Goltzman
Calcium Research Laboratory, Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The rate of fracture-healing is accelerated and abundant callus develops in
patients who have a head injury and fractures. The mechanism underlying
this is unclear. We studied the possibility that increased circulating
growth factors or circulating factors that stimulate local release of
growth factors mediate the increased osteogenesis. Samples of serum were
obtained from thirty-two subjects: patients who had a head injury alone,
those who had a head injury and fractures of the lower extremities, those
who had only fractures, and control subjects who had neither a head injury
nor a fracture. Severe head injury was defined as that producing coma of at
least three days' duration. Growth-factor activity was determined by
assessing the effect of serum on the incorporation of [3H]thymidine and on
cell counts in primary cultures of osteoblastic cells from the calvaria of
fetal rats. Samples of serum from the two groups of patients who had a head
injury had higher mitogenic activity and produced a greater increase in the
number of cells than did the samples from the other two groups. The mean
levels of activity were not statistically different between the first two
groups or between the patients who had fractures only and the control
subjects. Dilution studies showed that increased mitogenic activity in the
serum from the patients who had a head injury was dose-dependent. In three
patients in whom it was studied, the mitogenic activity peaked
approximately thirty-seven days after the head injury was sustained.
CiteULike 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Technorati What's this?
