052 Quick solution for bone fusion disorders

Authors: Prof. Anna M. Osyczka, PhD, DSc – Team Leader, The Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Institute of Zoology and Biomedical Research, Department of Cell Biology and Imaging
Karolina Truchan, BSc (final year PhD student), Biological Sciences, Bartosz Ilnicki, BSc (PhD candidate), Biological Sciences, Prof. AGH, Katarzyna Cholewa-Kowalska, Dr Eng., DSc, University of Science and Technology (Stanislaw Staszic Academy of Mining and Metallurgy) in Krakow, Faculty of Materials Science and Ceramics, Department of Glass and Amorphous Coatings Technology, Prof. URK, dr hab. Tomasz Szponder, The Head of the Department of Diagnostics and Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Agricultural University of Krakow, Dr n.med. Łukasz Niedźwiedzki, Faculty of Health Sciences of the Collegium Medicum of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and the Department of Trauma Surgery, Orthopedics and Rehabilitation of the Małopolska Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Hospital in Krakow

Incidence of bone fracture is very common in both medical and veterinary profession. Despite tremendous progress in medical and veterinary fields to address this problem, the complication rate in the treatment of bone fractures remains relatively high, i.e. 28% according to Andrade et al. 2025. Bone fusion disorders are a very serious problem in orthopedics and traumatology. The surgical treatment of non-unions, which account for 16% of cases after bone fractures, still presents a challenge. This is due to the needs of stabilizing the bone along with providing the site with osteoinductive scaffolds and/or growth factors, and a supply of osteoblastic cells that will form a new bone.

Autologous transplantation of spongy bone is currently most commonly used for this purpose, despite it prolongs the operation time and causes additional trauma. For small animals, especially dogs of miniature “toy” breeds with a body weight < 1 kg, this type of procedure is very difficult. The growing popularity of these breeds significantly increases the owners’ needs for solving the problem of e.g. forearm bone fractures in these animals. They are particularly acute due to anatomical conditions (i.e. congenital disorders of vascularization of the forearm bone and significantly reduced intraosseous blood supply to the distal part of the radius) making the complication rate up to 75%! There are currently no effective methods of supporting the aforementioned fractures with biological methods due to the animal size and the potent trauma accompanying, e.g., bone marrow biopsy in an animal weighted < 1 kg.

The persistent state of bone non-union both in humans and animals eventually leads to bone atrophy and permanent deformity of the limb and frequently to the need for amputation.

We offer a quick solution to this problem by using the adipose tissue-derived stromal vascular fraction cells, harvested from subcutaneous adipose tissue, that in our innovative protocol, can be rapidly and effectively prompted to provide osteoblastic cells, followed by their delivery to the bone fracture site on the scaffold used in this invention or any other suitable surgical material. It should be noted that the scaffold proposed in the invention is a combination of synthetic/autologous material that does not carry the risk of transmission of infectious diseases.

The proposed solution is based on the invented protocol of rapid differentiation of adipose tissue cells into bone-like cells in vitro. The protocol includes bioactive material as a cell carrier; the developed composition of culture medium supplements (“chemical cocktail”), and application of dynamic cell culture conditions.