The effects of local insulin delivery on diabetic fracture healing.

Several studies have documented that diabetes impairs bone healing clinically and experimentally. Systemic insulin treatment has been shown to ameliorate impaired diabetic bone healing. However, these studies failed to distinguish between a direct and a systemic effect of insulin upon bone healing.

Decreased platelet derived growth factor expression during fracture healing in diabetic animals.

Animal model experiments have suggested that diabetes inhibits cell proliferation during fracture healing. Immunohistochemical analysis of proliferating cell nuclear antigen revealed significant reductions in cellular proliferation rates in the fracture callus of spontaneously diabetic BB Wistar rats as compared with healthy BB Wistar rats. Because platelet derived growth factor is associated with the early stage of fracture healing, it was hypothesized that diabetes causes decreased platelet derived growth factor expression during the early phase of fracture healing with a concomitant decrease in cell proliferation.

The effects of blood glucose control upon fracture healing in the BB Wistar rat with diabetes mellitus.

Several clinical series, analyzing fracture healing in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). demonstrated significant incidence of delayed union, non-union, and pseudarthrosis. In this study, analysis was performed to evaluate the effects of blood glucose (BG) control on fracture healing in the DM BB Wistar rat, a rat strain that represents a close homology to Type I DM in man.

Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound increases the fracture callus strength in diabetic BB Wistar rats but does not affect cellular proliferation.

Type I diabetes mellitus (DM) is associated with impaired fracture healing. Specifically, DM affects multiple phases of fracture healing including early cellular proliferation and late phases resulting in inferior biomechanical properties. Recent studies demonstrated the utility of pulsed low-intensity ultrasound (US) to facilitate fracture healing.