Bone Abstracts

Objective: Existing case series examining outcomes following spine surgery for patients with skeletal dysplasias demonstrate high rates of complications. Yet, these earlier studies are from a single institution, contain surgeries performed almost 50 years ago, and only include patients with a diagnosis of achondroplasia. The objective is to determine contemporary outcomes after spinal surgery in patients with skeletal dypslasias, focusing on complications and revisions. We pre...

Fractures are common in childhood, but multiple fractures during growth could indicate osteoporosis. Children with frequent fractures might benefit from further investigations for osteoporosis and as such, obtaining an accurate fracture history is important. The 2013 International Society for Clinical Densitometry Paediatric Osteoporosis Position Statement defined a clinically significant fracture history as two long bone fractures before age 10 years or three long bo...

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Although it has been suggested that overweight and obese children have an increased risk of fracture, recent studies in post-menopausal women have shown that the relationship between obesity and fracture risk varies by fracture site. Thus, obesity is protective against wrist fractures but confers an increased risk of humeral fractures. There are no data to suggest whether this observation is also present in children. We therefore assessed whether adiposity and overweight/obesi...

The endocannabinoid system has important effects on bone mass and bone turnover. Mice with targeted inactivation of type 1 (CB1) and type 2 (CB2) cannabinoid receptors develop osteoporosis with increasing age raising the possibility that cannabinoid receptor agonists might protect against age-related bone loss. Since cannabis is the most widely used illegal drug and its main psychotropic component -Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)- is an agonist at CB1 and CB2 receptors, we ...

Objectives: To define the role of bone morphogenetic proteins (BMP) in human osteochondromas. The expression of bone morphogenetic proteins and their corresponding receptors has not been clarified in osteochondromas. We determined immunohistochemically the localization and distribution of bone morphogenetic proteins 2, 4, 6 and 7, bone morphogenetic protein receptor types 1A, 1B and 2 and the functional effectors phosphorylated Smad proteins 1, 5 and 8 in the cartilaginous cap...

Objectives: Intravenous bisphosphonates have been used in children for various primary and secondary bone fragility disorders for three decades but beyond osteogenesis imperfecta, there is very limited information published in relation to outcomes. We report the experience at the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH), Melbourne using Zoledronic acid (ZA), describing outcomes based on the underlying condition for which treatment was given, with the aim of informing future protoc...

Objectives: The primary objective of this project was to determine the nature and timing of perceived early adverse effects associated with bisphosphonate therapy. Additional information was sought on how this affected the child and family, to determine if changes should be made to local guidelines.Methods: A Smartphone-based text message survey was sent to parents of patients receiving intravenous bisphosphonate therapy for primary and secondary osteopo...

Introduction: Nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates (N-BPs) can inhibit the differentiation and function of osteoclasts derived from Peripheral Blood Mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in a dose-dependent manner. MUTZ-3 cells are a potentially useful human cell line for studying osteoclast differentiation. The aim of this study was to elucidate the action of N-BPs on MUTZ-3 cells.Methods: Human PBMCs and MUTZ-3 cells were cultured in α-MEM supplemented with he...

Fractures are very common and affect 2% of the population per annum. Fragility fractures represent the greatest unmet need and are associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality. Currently, there is no approved therapy for enhancing healing of fragility fractures. We previously reported that upregulation of the early inflammatory response following skeletal injury can promote fracture repair (Glass et al PNAS 2011). Inflammation represents the earliest response followin...