Deferoxamine Accelerates Consolidation Periods during Distraction Osteogenesis in Murine Mandibles

Abstract

Craniofacial abnormalities are often difficult to correct due to a multitude of physiologic interacting elements. Nevertheless, successful treatments have become possible due to increasing knowledge of the complex mechanisms of bone rehabilitation. Distraction osteogenesis (DO) is a clinically accepted surgical therapy used to remediate a number of deformities associated with the craniofacial skeleton. Although DO has proven to be an incredibly effective therapy, the length of time required for successful consolidation renders patients vulnerable to infection and delays their return to normal activities of daily living. Finding techniques to optimize consolidation periods could limit these morbidities, and further advance the immense therapeutic potential of this surgical procedure. Understanding detriments in vascularity during bone regeneration has offered exploitable avenues for the optimization of DO. This study looked to animal experimental models with murine rodents to accelerate consolidation periods during mandibular DO using Deferoxamine (DFO) as an angiogenic enhancing therapy to bolster vascular response in bone regeneration. While bony unions observed both grossly and radiographically were expected to form for both the control and experimental groups for the 28 day consolidation period, unions were discovered at the earliest consolidation time point of 14 days. These results suggest that DFO’s role in enhancing vascularity led to increases in the number of bony unions and shortened the conventionally accepted time parameter of consolidation periods by 50%. Further analysis should confirm that the addition of DFO does in fact improve bone quality during DO, ultimately leading to the expansion of reconstructive capabilities for craniofacial surgeons in the future.