Word: bones
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...technique, developed by a team headed by Surgeon Judah Folkman of Children's Hospital Medical Center and described in the Lancet, the bone is made into strips, blocks, chips or powder and soaked in hydrochloric acid to remove all minerals. It is then dried, sterilized and stored. When needed, it is mixed with a saline solution. Says Plastic Surgeon John B. Mulliken, also of Children's Hospital: "The powder, which then has a pasty consistency, is used to caulk around defects, to fill in holes, irregularities, and is shoved into places hard to get at. The chips, though...
...conventional transplants, the grafted material serves as scaffolding for bone cells migrating from adjacent tissue. But, the researchers say, something else apparently happens with demineralized bone: it induces the host tissue to form completely new bone. "This material changes the cells it comes in contact with," Biochemist Julie Glowacki explains. Fibroblasts, the cells that produce the connective tissue in the body, become osteoblasts, which are bone-producing cells. Though no one knows why the conversion occurs, scientists speculate that the demineralized material delivers an electrical signal to surrounding cells...
...jawless child grew a new one after only a brief operation to insert demineralized bone...
...most extensive use of demineralized bone taken from humans (and possibly some day from animals) may be to treat accident victims or people who are losing jawbone because of periodontal disease or tooth loss. But the researchers caution that the procedure is still experimental and must undergo more clinical tests before it comes into widespread use. Says Mulliken: "We just don't know how strong the bone is going to be." Adds Oral Surgeon Leonard Kaban: "We are trying to go very slowly with this. We don't want it to be a case of the emperor...
Brooklyn, 1945. The Pollacks are bone-poor. They lead lives of congealed desperation, though their dialogue sometimes glints with the leapfrog logic of Allen's idiosyncratic humor...