14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers who participated at the 2012 annual meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS), in San Francisco, were the first to be told about a new method of successfully regenerating lost bone tissue. The approach requires the use of patients' own cartilages.
The work was carried out by experts with the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) Orthopedic Trauma Institute, e! Science News reports. The team says that cartilage grafts are an excellent place to start for regenerating bones.
Using cartilage for the job “is not the pathway that most people think about, but it made a lot more sense to follow the normal developmental mechanism,” UCSF expert Chelsea S. Bahney, PhD, says.
The reason why the graft works is that cartilage is naturally active, containing molecules that promote the vascularization of new tissue. This, in turn, leads to the formation of new bone material in affected areas.