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Stem cell treatment may offer option for non-union fractures

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The transplantation of adult stem cells enriched with regenerative hormone insulin-like growth factor may help mend non-union fractures, according to a study from researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

According to a university press release, Anna Spagnoli, MD and her team found that stem cells manufactured with insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) become new cells, helping those cells within broken bones to repair fracture and accelerate healing. She presented the findings at the 93rd Annual Meeting of the Endocrine Society in Boston.

“We found that stem cells empowered with IGF-1 restored the formation of new bone in a mouse lacking the ability to repair broken bones,” Anna Spagnoli, MD, stated in a university press release. “This is the first evidence that stem cell therapy can address a deficiency of fracture repair.”

Spagnoli labeled in the release a “crucial step toward developing a stem cell-based treatment for patients with fracture non-unions,” the team used a knockout mouse incapable of healing broken bones to test the effects of IGF-1-enriched adult stem cell transplantation. Mesenchymal stem cells of mice were engineered to express IGF-1, then transplanted into knockout mice with tibial fractures.

CT scanning evaluated fracture healing in the mice, which demonstrated that the mice treated with IGF-1 stem cells displayed better fracture healing than mice that were left untreated or were treated only with stem cells. The IGF-1 stem cell mice were shown to have more bridging of the fracture gap — and new bone was three to four times stronger — than the controls left to heal on their own or with given only stem cells.

“We envision a clinical use of combined mesenchymal stem cells and IGF-1 similar to the approach employed in bone marrow transplant, in which stem cell therapy is combined with growth factors to restore blood cells,” Spagnoli stated. “I think this treatment will be feasible to start testing in patients in a few years.”

Reference:

• www.med.unc.edu
• Disclosure: Support for the research came from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, a component of the National Institutes of Health.

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