Bioactive Peptide Coatings for Synthetic Bone Grafts

描述(由申请人提供)：背部疼痛是美国医生就诊的主要原因之一，在许多情况下需要手术干预。在美国，每年有50多万例脊柱融合手术，而且这些手术的频率预计每年增长6%。脊柱融合植骨的黄金标准是自体髂骨移植，然而，自体植骨的使用面临着多重挑战，包括供区发病率、失血量、可获得性有限、手术时间延长以及由于融合速度慢而导致的假关节。因此，人们致力于开发骨移植替代品或延长剂，不仅可以减少或取代自体骨的采集，而且还可以加快融合(关节融合术)的速度。陶瓷骨移植替代物提供了骨传导和生物可吸收的骨移植替代物，但作为单独治疗显示出较差的效果。骨髓抽吸物含有骨诱导因子，但目前的载体不足以在较长时间内保留和释放这些骨诱导因子。因此，在脊柱融合手术中，对安全、经济有效的骨移植替代品的临床需求尚未得到满足，这种替代品可以在愈合过程的早期阶段保持持续剂量的骨诱导因子。我们开发了一种能够捕获和保留骨诱导生长因子的骨移植替代品，并建议测试其在脊柱融合手术中提高融合率的能力。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Back pain is one of the leading reasons for physician visits in the United States and in many cases requires surgical intervention. In the United States, there are over 500,000 spinal fusion surgeries every year, and the frequency of these surgeries is projected to grow 6% per year. The gold standard for bone graft in spinal fusion is autograft from the iliac crest; however, the use of autograft presents multiple challenges including donor site morbidity, blood loss, limited availability, prolonged operating times, and pseudarthrosis due to a slow rate of fusion. As a result, there is a large effort to develop bone graft substitutes or extenders that can not only reduce or replace the need for harvest of autogenous bone but also accelerate the rate of fusion (arthrodesis). Ceramic bone graft substitutes provide osteoconductive and bioresorbable bone graft substitutes but have shown poor results when used as stand-alone treatments. Bone marrow aspirate contains osteoinductive factors, but the current carriers are not adequate for the retention and release of these osteoinductive factors over a prolonged period of time. Therefore, there is an unmet clinical need in spinal fusion surgery for a safe, cost-effective bone graft substitute that can maintain a sustained dose of osteoinductive factors throughout the early stages of the healing process. We have developed a bone graft substitute that can capture and retain osteoinductive growth factors and propose to test its ability to improve the fusion rate in spinal fusion surgery.