News not of our science: hydrogel from fractures
September 15, 2022 appeared news about the successes of scientists and doctors in Israel in the field of orthopedics and fracture healing. The bottom line is to use the "hydrogel" as a scaffold for bone regeneration.
The variety of fractures from a bullet, shrapnel or some other projectile hit is very large. The bone may not be completely damaged, resulting in a perforated or marginal fracture, or it may be broken with the appearance of fragments or completely crushed.
Even domestic comminuted fractures are one of the most difficult cases, since the fragments are usually displaced. It can occur anywhere, but the long bones of the arms and legs are most commonly affected. Quite often, it is not possible to assemble the resulting “puzzle”, and if the joint is also damaged, then it will be possible to restore its full performance only if the surgeons manage to accurately restore its configuration.
I think most readers know or at least have heard about the temporary pulsating cavity that occurs when any firearm projectile hits the soft tissues at a speed of over 300 m / s. When such a projectile collides with dense obstacles, one might say, a small explosion occurs. As a result, a lot of fragments appear, which themselves become striking elements.
Subsequently, surgeons use fragments as a "graft" and try to fill them with as many missing defects as possible at the fracture site. For temporary fixation of parts of the bone, a skeletal traction method is used, for example, the Ilizarov transosseous compression-distraction apparatus. The principle of operation is simple - what could not be grown, is grown again. The main thing is to have something to grow from ...
No matter how effective the invention of Gavriil Abramovich may be from the point of view of reparative regeneration, it has obvious purely domestic inconveniences. Of course, in a large number of cases, a person does not completely lose mobility, but with multiple or combined damage, it will take about 120 days to wear such a thing, and besides, a person is tied to a hospital. In the case of using “plates”, “hinges” and classic plaster casts, everything is a little simpler, of course, if there are no complications.
What's with the Jews?
Serious advances in the development of hydrogels date back to plus or minus 2018. The bottom line is to create a substance that is not rejected by the body, which will nourish and accelerate bone formation without embedding in cells.
They are still experimenting on rats, but since the effectiveness has been proven, they will soon get to primates. 20 rats were given 5 mm calvarial lesions and filled with various drugs, while the control group was left as is. Given the entire length of the skull at 39-45 mm, the damage is more than decent. As a result, under natural conditions, implantation of the hydrogel led to the restoration of about 93% of the bone. The rigidity of the hydrogel is 48 Pascals, which, translated into normal language, is approximately 780 kg per square centimeter.
No hydrogel residues were found 8 weeks after implantation. Rats without implantation of the substance were able to fill the defect with newly formed bone only at the edges, while rats that were helped completely occluded the defect. In hydrogel-treated rats, the new bone did not differ in composition from the surrounding skull bones. The rats were checked and translucent in every possible way, after which they came to the conclusion that the hydrogel (FmocFF) / HA is the best. In addition to the obvious advantages, it is also easy to produce, it is cheap, it is easy to handle and transport.
What does this mean for us?
Nothing special if you don't have to face it personally. Eight weeks until almost complete healing of a critical injury is an excellent result. The absence in the future of subsequent surgical interventions and the need to stay in a hospital allows a person to continue to live and not take up a place in the hospital.
From the point of view of military application, the benefit, in my opinion, is also obvious. The fighter recovers faster, gets to the military selection committee faster and is sent back to the ranks.
Of course, the share of skepticism is acceptable, since experiments are still being carried out only on rats, but the results of experiments on humans are unlikely to be published in the public domain. Science works primarily for the military, and then something will fall into the hands of civilians. Well, as with the Internet in its time.
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