Treatment of femoral head osteonecrosis with advanced cell therapy in sheep

Background The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of core decompression associated with advanced cell therapy for the treatment of femoral head osteonecrosis in an established sheep model. Methods Early stage osteonecrosis of the right hip was induced cryogenically in 15 mature sheep. At 6 weeks, the sheep were divided into three groups, Group A: core decompression only; Group B: core decompression followed by implantation of an acellular bone matrix scaffold; Group C: core decompression followed by implantation of a cultured BMSC loaded bone matrix scaffold. At 12 weeks, MRI hip studies were performed and then the proximal femur was harvested for histological analysis. Results In the group of advanced cell therapy, Group C, there was a tendency to higher values of the relative surface of newly formed bone with a mean of 20.3 versus 11.27 % in Group A and 13.04 % in Group B but it was not statistically significant. However, the mean relative volume of immature osteoid was 8.6 % in Group A, 14.97 in Group B, and 53.49 % in Group C ( p