US - Researchers have developed a much needed alternative to bone grafts that could help alleviate the long-term hospitalization, disability, and considerable costs to the health system associated with non-healing fractures.According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, roughly 100,000 broken bones every year in the United States fail to heal properly, resulting in nonunion fractures, and more than 2 million bone grafts are performed around the world annually in attempts to treat these challenging injuries.Harvesting fresh bone from patients, however, is often painful and donated grafts from tissue banks frequently fail to integrate. Now, Maxim Bez and colleagues devised a two-step gene therapy method coupled with FDA-approved ultrasound and microbubbles that completely healed nonunion fractures in pigs within eight weeks of treatment.

　　美国研究人员已经研发出一种目前正被广泛需要的骨移植物的替代品，它能减少因长期住院、残疾以及不可治愈的骨折问题，而花费在医疗体系上的大量成本。根据美国科学促进协会，美国每年大约有10万例，因为不能愈合的骨伤而导致治愈失败的受损骨骼。为了尝试治疗这些具有挑战性的伤病，全世界每年需要超过200万个骨移植物。从病人那儿获取新鲜骨，经常会令病人感到十分疼痛，而从组织库得过的捐献骨移植物却经常难以匹配。现在Maxim Bez和他的同事设计出了一种两步基因疗法，配合美国食品及药物管理局批准的超声诊断和微气泡，能够在八周的治疗期内完全治愈猪身上的不愈合骨头。