New method heals broken bones quicker and may make them stronger

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

A new high-tech way of healing broken bones quicker could also make them more than three times stronger.

The new treatment method - using plasma irradiation - promotes faster bone healing in complex fractures, Japanese scientists say.

They have already successfully tested the technique on lab rats.

The team found that bones not only healed quicker but the strength of the healed areas of irradiated rats was also around 3.5 times stronger than that of non-irradiated ones.

Currently, fractures that are displaced or complex require surgery and possibly lengthy recovery times while the patient remains immobilized.

Aiming to shorten recovery times, a research team led by scientists at Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan is focusing on plasma irradiation as a treatment method to speed up bone healing.

They used laboratory rats for their experiment.

The legs of the rats were broken in two ways. One group of 24 rats had normal fractures that are generally easy to heal while the other group of 20 rats had fractures known as "non-union" ones where healing is usually prolonged or does not complete.

Some of the rats were then irradiated with non-thermal atmospheric-pressure plasma.

That treatment didn’t offer the normal fracture group any significant advantages but boosted the healing and recovery time of the rats with non-union fractures.

The strength of the healed areas of the irradiated non-union rats was also about 3.5 times stronger than that of the non-irradiated ones, according to findings published in the journal PLoS One.

In vitro study of cells irradiated with the plasma for five to 15 seconds also showed that the activity of a protein that is an indicator of osteoblast differentiation increased, indicating that maturation of the bone-forming cells was progressing.

Professor Hiromitsu Toyoda said: “Collaboration between the medical and engineering fields creates new medical technologies that have never before existed."

He added: “In the future, combining this treatment method with current fracture treatments is expected to contribute to more reliable bone fusion and shorter recovery times.”