COMPARISON OF PRIMATE AND CANINE MODELS FOR BONE INGROWTH EXPERIMENTATION, WITH REFERENCE TO THE EFFECT OF OVARIAN-FUNCTION ON BONE INGROWTH POTENTIAL

Bone growth into porous composite (mesh-bead) titanium plugs was compa red in elderly (postmenopausal) female monkeys and female dogs as a me ans of validating the cross-species interpretations so often made betw een data from research on dogs and human applications. The effect of o ophorectomy on bone ingrowth in the canine model was defined by the co mparison of data on fractional ingrowth in animals that had had oophor ectomy and in control animals that had had a sham operation. No signif icant difference in bone growth into the experimental plugs was identi fied between the two animal models, which lends credence to cross-spec ies interpretation of existing data from dogs. The presence or absence of active ovaries did not affect the ingrowth fraction in the canine model; this suggests that existing data are not confounded by the lack of control of ovarian function. Estrogen depletion does not appear to influence bone ingrowth adversely.