New bone formation in a true bone ceramic scaffold loaded with desferrioxamine in the treatment of segmental bone defect: a preliminary study

Desferrioxamine (DFO), an iron chelator, can stimulate osteogenesis and angiogenesis by stabilizing hypoxia-inducible factor 1α. We postulate that a bone graft substitute combined with DFO is beneficial to the reconstruction of bone defects. We implanted pure true bone ceramic (TBC) and DFO-loaded TBC (DFO/TBC) scaffolds into 15-mm rabbit radial defects for 8weeks. The bone segments were examined with X-ray, micro-CT and histology. Radiographs showed that the DFO/TBC scaffold became radiopaque, and the gaps between the scaffold and radial cut ends were often invisible. Variables from micro-CT, including the bone volume fraction (BV/TV), trabecular thickness (Tb.Th) and trabecular number (Tb.N), were significantly increased in pure TBC and DFO/TBC scaffolds that had been implanted for 8weeks compared to unimplanted TBC scaffolds (p values