The relationship between revascularisation and osteogenesis in fresh or demineralised bone grafts

Bone formation generally depends on adequate blood flow. Failure of bone gr afts has been attributed to delayed revascularisation of the graft. We comp ared the relationship between revascularisation and osteogenesis, evaluated as entrapment of Ce-141-labelled microspheres and uptake of Sr-85, respect ively, in fresh or demineralised syngeneic bone grafts 3 weeks after hetero topic implantation in rats. Whereas a moderately high linear correlation be tween Sr-85 and Ce-141 radioactivity was found both in the (intact) host il iac bone (r = 0.75, p = 0.0001) and implanted fresh syngeneic grafts (r = 0 .50, p = 0.001), no correlation could be demonstrated in demineralised graf ts(r = 0.09, p = 0.6), The results may indicate differences in the mechanis ms of vascularisation and osteogenesis in the grafts used fresh or after de mineralization but are, at present, difficult to fully explain. Copyright ( C) 2001 S. Karger AG. Basel.