Ectopic bone formation in bone marrow stem cell seeded calcium phosphate scaffolds as compared to autograft and (cell seeded) allograft

Improvements to current therapeutic strategies are needed for the treatment of skeletal defects. Bone tissue engineering offers potential advantages to these strategies. In this study, ectopic bone formation in a range of scaffolds was assessed. Vital autograft and devitalized allograft served as controls and the exptl. groups comprised autologous bone marrow derived stem cell seeded allograft, biphasic calcium phosphate (BCP) and tricalcium phosphate (TCP), resp. All implants were implanted in the back muscle of adult Dutch milk goats for 12 wk. Micro-computed tomog. (μCT) anal. and histomorphometry was performed to evaluate and quantify ectopic bone formation. In good agreement, both μCT and histomorphometric anal. demonstrated a significant increase in bone formation by cell-seeded calcium phosphate scaffolds as compared to the autograft, allograft and cell-seeded allograft implants. An extensive resorption of the autograft, allograft and cell-seeded allograft implants was obsd. by histol. and confirmed by histomorphometry. Cell-seeded TCP implants also showed distinct signs of degrdn. with histomorphometry and μCT, while the degrdn. of the cell-seeded BCP implants was negligible. These results indicate that cell-seeded calcium phosphate scaffolds are superior to autograft, allograft or cell-seeded allograft in terms of bone formation at ectopic implantation sites. In addn., the usefulness of μCT for the efficient and non-destructive anal. of mineralized bone and calcium phosphate scaffold was demonstrated. [on SciFinder(R)]