In modern medical practice, replacing bones with titanium or even implants printed on a 3D printer is far from new, if not commonplace. At the same time, any transplant will always have a lot of shortcomings in comparison with the “personal” human organ. And more recently, a group of Israeli doctors presented "liquid bones": a special substance that quickly enough forms new bone tissue.
The essence of the technology for creating "liquid bones" is based on the use of stem cells from the adipose tissue of patients. To begin with, doctors take the material, after which they create a three-dimensional model of the necessary bones using special software. Then, in special pressure chambers for several months, the process of differentiation of stem cells and bone growth from the cellular substrate takes place. Stem cells of adipose tissue were not chosen by chance, since both bone and adipose tissue belong to the same type: connective tissue, and the process of differentiation of progenitor cells from one type of tissue to another is relatively easy to regulate. According to study authors Ora Burger and Atar Novak, “We have conducted clinical trials on the maxillofacial bones. Now we are going to repeat the process on the limbs, on the so-called long bones. For this we have already carried out preliminary tests on sheep. The resulting product has a semi-liquid consistency. We inject it inside the defective bone, and then we see how 12 weeks later the bone has already healed, hardened and become fully functional."
The duration of a full cycle of treatment in this way does not exceed 3 months. At the same time, one of the most formidable complications of modern transplantation is absent: material rejection. The technology has been successfully tested in 11 patients with jaw injuries, and the experts are now going to begin clinical trials on the limbs, which will begin next year.
VLADIMIR KUZNETSOV
