Validation of Bone Conversion in Osteoconductive and Osteoinductive Bone Substitutes

Bone reconstruction can be performed with an autogeneic graft from various donor regions. Osteoconductive and osteoinductive bone substitutes originate from substances of diverse chemical and morphological types and can have a synthetic or a biological derivation. Alongside autogeneic bone transplants and allogenic and xenogeneic bone implants, alloplastic bone replacements of synthetic or semi-synthetic origin are being used for defect reconstruction. In an animal model in rabbits five bone substitutes and one autogeneic graft were surgically incorporated into identical bone defects (10times 10 mm in size) in six anatomically defined regions of the skull. With scintigraphic and histological methods, the metabolic dynamics of the bone is examined as it reacts to the transplantation of autogeneic bone or to implanted bone replacement material. The different autogeneic, xenogeneic and alloplastic bone replacement materials can be differentiated according to the functional quality of the new tissue and the dynamics of the bone conversion thus induced. In the comparison of mineralized, osteoconductive bone subsitutes (TCP, HA, calcium carbonate ceramics) with demineralized, osteoinductive implants (DBM new, DBM old) and autogeneic bone grafts, the bone inducing matrices show the largest quantity of new bone formation, making possible a volume-constant reconstruction. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.