Bone Abstracts

Osteosarcoma, the main malignant primary bone tumor, affects a ‘young’ population composed of children and young adults. Current treatment consists of tumor resection associated with chemotherapy. Unfortunately in many cases, a lack of response to anti-tumor drugs is observed, leading to development of metastases and to the patient’s death. Because TGF-β promotes metastases from many solid epithelial tumors, we investigated the effect of inhibitory Smad7 ov...

Aging is a complex process that results in the decline of physiologic functions due to accumulation of damage in cells and tissues. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) counteract this decline but their regeneration capacity decreases with age. In particular osteogenic differentiation potential of MSCs has been shown to decrease with age thereby contributing to slowed down bone formation and osteoporosis. While much is known about cellular aging of MSCs, little is known about factors...

Background: Marfan syndrome (MFS) is a rare connective tissue disorder caused by mutation in the gene encoding the extracellular matrix protein fibrillin-1 (FBN1), leading to transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) signaling dysregulation. Although decreased axial and peripheral bone mineral density (BMD) has been reported in adults with MFS, data about the evolution of bone mass during childhood and adolescence are limited.Objectives: The aim of th...

While the connection between under-nutrition and growth retardation is well documented, the opposite connection between over-nutrition and bone development was barely studied. For instance, obese children grow faster in height than normal-weighed children, and prospective studies demonstrated an over-presentation of obese children amongst fracture cases. Furthermore, little is known about the direct effect and the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms of the diet or sin...

Objectives: A heterozygous missense mutation p. C218G in WNT1 was recently identified as the cause of severe primary osteoporosis (Laine et al., New engl J Med 2013). The mutation has thus far been identified in two large Finnish families presenting with dominantly inherited, early-onset osteoporosis, with affected adult patients showing reduced bone mineral density (BMD), vertebral compression fractures, kyphosis and height loss. This study examined characte...

Early-onset primary osteoporosis is characterized by low bone mineral density (BMD) and increased tendency to fractures in young people. Studies on rare bone diseases, such as osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), have identified several new genes associated with early-onset skeletal fragility. This study aimed to explore the role of variation in the cartilage-associated protein (CRTAP) gene in early-onset osteoporosis and/or recurrent fractures. We first used homozygosity ma...

Background and aims: Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) as currently utilised has limitations in identifying patients with osteoporosis and predicting fractures, since most low-trauma fracture (LTF) patients have osteopenia not osteoporosis based on DXA assessment. We aimed to express peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) variables of patients with low-trauma fracture as T-scores by using T-score scales obtained from healthy young women, and ...

Biographical DetailsEric HesseEric Hesse studied Medicine at Hannover Medical School in Germany where he became MD in 2003. He was trained in Orthopedic Surgery and graduated as PhD in 2007 in Genetics & Cell Biology in Hannover, Germany. In 2005, he moved as a Postdoctoral Fellow funded by the German Research Foundation to the laboratory of Dr ...

Objectives: X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) is a rare genetic disorder of phosphate metabolism caused by mutations in the PHEX gene. This pilot study aims to apply novel imaging techniques to asses the musculoskeletal phenotype of XLH patients by bidirectional axial transmission (BDAT) ultrasound, magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and high resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT).Methods: BDAT bone ultrasound of the radius and...

Recent meta-analyses of vitamin D without co-administration of calcium have not demonstrated fracture prevention, possibly through lack of power, inappropriate choice of doses, or failure to target the intervention to deficient populations. Bone mineral density (BMD) is able to detect biologically significant effects in much smaller cohorts, so is a relevant surrogate measure with which to re-assess the skeletal efficacy of these supplements. We searched Web of Science, Embase...