Evaluation of Efficacy and Safety of Autologous MSCs Combined to Biomaterials to Enhance Bone Healing

Bone grafting is widely used in hospitals to repair injured, aged or diseased skeletal tissue. In Europe, about one million patients encounter a surgical bone reconstruction annually and the numbers are increasing due to our ageing population. Bone grafting intends to facilitate bone healing through osteogenesis (i.e. bone generation) at the site of damage, but this is only attained presently by including cells capable of forming bone into the augmentation. Bone autograft is the safest and most effective grafting procedure, since it contains patient's own bone growing cells (to enhance osteogenesis) and proteins (to enhance osteoinduction), and it providing a scaffold for the new bone to grow into (osteoconduction). However, bone autograft is limited in quantity (about 20 cc) and its harvesting (e.g. from the iliac crest) represents an additional surgical intervention, with frequent consequent pain and complications. We hypothesize that using autologous bone marrow cells expanded in GMP facility surgically implanted with synthetic bone substitutes contribute to the resolution of the health and socioeconomic complications of delayed union or non-union after diaphyseal and metaphyseal-diaphyseal fractures with safety and efficacy.