Stem Cell Therapy for Vertebral Bone Tissue Engineering

Vertebral compression fractures are the most common fragility fractures accounting for approximately 700,000 injuries per year. Since open surgery involves morbidity and implant failure in the osteoporotic patient population, new minimally invasive solution are being developed. These methods include injection of synthetic nonbiological material that does not resorb and remains a permanent foreign-body fixture. Therefore there is a clear clinical need for a biological solution for vertebral bone repair. We have previously shown that BMP-modified adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) are capable of inducing spinal fusion in vivo.(1) In this study we hypothesized that direct injection of ASCs, transiently expressing BMP6, to a vertebral bone void defect would induce accelerated bone regeneration.