Comparison of the Effect of Nanocrystalline Hydroxyapatite and Stem Cells in Tibial Fracture Healing (Experimental Study)

Abstract

SUMMARY T he purpose of this study was to compare the added effect of the nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite and the stem cells in fracture healing. The study was conducted on twenty four New Zealand rabbits weighing 2 to 2.5 kg. The animals were equally divided into three groups. After intentional osteotomy we added nanocrystalline hydroxyapatite in the NHA group, undifferentiated mesenchymal stem cells in MSCs group and we left the osteotomy site in the control group without any added biomaterials. All the groups received the same care before, during and after the operations. The samples were dissected from the animal cadavers after sacrifice to be assessed radiographically by digital radiography to evaluate bone density and then histologic and histomorphometric assessments of the samples that were stained by H & E and Masson's Trichrome stain. The comparison between two independent groups with quantitative data and parametric distribution were done by using One Way ANOVA test followed by post hoc analysis using LSD test. On the other hand, the Spearman correlation coefficients were used to estimate the correlation between quantitative parameters in the same group. Radiographic evaluation showed that there was no statistically significant difference found between NHA group and MSCs group, but there was highly statistically significant difference found between the NHA and the control group also between MSCs and control group.