Floating hip and associated injuries.

Aim: To describe our experience in treating patients diagnosed with floating hip injury and to communicate the outcomes achieved and the rate of complications. A secondary aim is to compare the results of this group in terms of quality of life with those of patients presenting with a fracture either of the pelvis or of the acetabulum, but in which the femoral segment is not involved.

Patients And Methods: This is a descriptive study of the patients diagnosed with floating hip injury (25 patients) who were treated at our hospital between 2004 and 2007, with a minimum follow-up of seven years.

Evaluation of posterolateral lumbar fusion in sheep using mineral scaffolds seeded with cultured bone marrow cells.

The objective of this study is to investigate the efficacy of hybrid constructs in comparison to bone grafts (autograft and allograft) for posterolateral lumbar fusion (PLF) in sheep, instrumented with transpedicular screws and bars. Hybrid constructs using cultured bone marrow (BM) mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have shown promising results in several bone healing models. In particular, hybrid constructs made by calcium phosphate-enriched cells have had similar fusion rates to bone autografts in posterolateral lumbar fusion in sheep.

Articular cartilage: structure and regeneration.

Articular cartilage (AC) has no or very low ability of self-repair, and untreated lesions may lead to the development of osteoarthritis. One method that has been proven to result in long-term repair or isolated lesions is autologous chondrocyte transplantation. However, first generation of these cells' implantation has limitations, and introducing new effective cell sources can improve cartilage repair.

Vascular complications in floating hip.

The so-called floating hip involves a pelvis or an acetabular fracture together with an ipsilateral femur bone fracture. Concurrent injuries are also common in these cases, with the evolution and outcome worse than expected when these fractures exist in isolation. We studied a series of 11 patients with floating hip lesions.