Augmentation of Bone Repair by Inductively Coupled Electromagnetic Fields
Bassett, Pawluk, Pilla · 1974
Pulsing electromagnetic fields inductively coupled to bone appeared to increase the organization and strength of bone repair in dogs at 28 days.
Plain English Summary
Researchers used pulsing electromagnetic fields inductively coupled across skin to study bone repair in adult beagles that had undergone bilateral fibular osteotomies. In the second series, of the 13 dogs analyzed, 10 demonstrated higher load values in the treated legs, a result significant by the sign test at P <.07. In the first series, with a circuit repeating at 1 hz, the mean load values revealed no statistically significant difference between stimulated legs and their controls.
Why This Matters
After 28 days, the healed osteotomies were dissected, x-rayed, mounted in a mechanical testing device to assay stiffness and viscoelastic properties, and then processed for histologic sections. Analysis of the histologic and radiographic material was carried out initially by observers with no knowledge of specimen origins. Field-treated osteotomies generally were stronger than their contralateral unstimulated controls, yet the bulk of callus was less. The fiber bundles of the tissues in the osteotomy gap in treated animals had a predominantly parallel longitudinal orientation, and very little cartilage or chondroid material was present. The researchers considered the effect probably non-thermal in origin, given the low power employed in the system. No evidence of neoplastic changes was observed in normal or injured tissues, and untraumatized soft tissues and bone exposed to the field appeared entirely normal.
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Show BibTeX
@article{augmentation_of_bone_repair_by_inductively_coupled_electromagnetic_fields_g7392,
author = {Bassett and Pawluk and Pilla},
title = {Augmentation of Bone Repair by Inductively Coupled Electromagnetic Fields},
year = {1974},
}