No abstract

We have evaluated bone-marrow activity in the proximal femur of patients with corticosteroid-induced osteonecrosis and compared it with that of patients with osteonecrosis related to sickle-cell disease and with a control group without osteonecrosis. Bone marrow was obtained by puncture of the femoral head outside the area of necrosis and in the intertrochanteric region. The activity of stromal cells was assessed by culturing fibroblast colony-forming units (FCFUs). We found a decrease in the number of FCFUs outside the area of osteonecrosis in the upper end of the femur of patients with corticosteroid-induced osteonecrosis compared with the other groups. We suggest that glucocorticosteroids may also have an adverse effect on bone by decreasing the number of progenitors. The possible relevance of this finding to osteonecrosis is discussed.

References1 Huntly BJP, Reid AG, Bench AJ, Campbell LJ, Telford N, Shepherd P, Szer J, Prince HM, Turner P, Grace C, Nacheva EP, Green AR. Deletions of the derivative chromosome 9 occur at the time of the Philadelphia translocation and provide a powerful and independent prognostic indicator in chronic myeloid leukemia. is an auto-immune disease where the stroma usually functions normally, damage of the microenvironment has been observed in a subset of SAA patients. 5 We report here a 68-year-old woman patient with end stage SAA refractory to administration of growth factors, cyclosporine A, antithymocyte globuline and ineligible for an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). This patient received two infusions of allogeneic MSC, in order to improve a possible defective BM stroma, to stimulate hypothetical residual HSC by local production of Correspondence: L Fouillard,

Percutaneous autologous bone-marrow grafting is an effective and safe method for the treatment of an atrophic tibial diaphyseal nonunion. However, its efficacy appears to be related to the number of progenitors in the graft, and the number of progenitors available in bone marrow aspirated from the iliac crest appears to be less than optimal in the absence of concentration.