Homologous growth hormone accelerates bone healing—a biomechanical and histological study

Intra-Articular Injections for the Treatment of Osteoarthritis: Focus on the Clinical Use of Several Regimens

“…Dogs were injected with recombinant bovine Growth hormone (1 mg), and several of these Growth hormone -treated dogs showed closure of these bone defects, while the remainder demonstrated healing. They reported that administration of homologous Growth hormone stimulates callus formation and ossification in the early phase of bone healing, which consequently results in increased mechanical strength and stiffness (Kolbeck et al, 2003). On the contrary, Growth hormone administration showed no measurable effects on fracture healing in a standardized tibia osteotomy rabbit model (Carpenter et al, 1992).…”

Fracture healing and bone repair: an update

“…Research and clinical studies on BMPs are ongoing, aiming to refine further our understanding of their activities in vivo and to optimise and expand their clinical use in humans. Other agents that have also been studied in animal models are GH, IGF, FGF, PTHrH, PTH and VEGF (Bail et al, 2002;Kolbeck et al, 2003;Schmidmaier et al, 2003;Kelpke et al, 2004;Broderick et al, 2005). Systemically administered factors that could promote healing include PTH and GH.…”

Growth hormone: does it have a therapeutic role in fracture healing?

“…Many studies have lent further support to the role of GH in fracture healing in animal models [112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122]. The stimulation of secondary fracture healing was demonstrated in a recent study involving micropigs, where 100 μg/kg weight recombinant porcine (r-p) GH was systemically administered for 4 weeks leading to both increased biomechanical strength and greater callus formation compared with untreated controls [113]. This finding was further supported by another recent study where, under the same experimental dose and delivery method, torsional failure and stiffness was 70 and 83% higher in the treatment group after 6 weeks [114].…”

“…Despite no studies directly implicating IGF-I mediating the role of GH in bone fracture healing itself, several experiments have observed a concomitant increase in IGF-I following GH administration [113][114][115]. There is evidence to suggest that the promotion of bone growth by GH is mediated by IGF-I [123], where administration of 0.25, 1 and 4 μg rGH into rat epiphyseal cartilage plate mediated growth, but this growth effect was nullified by the coadministration of antiserum to IGF-I.…”