Abstract: Background: Bone marrow is a good source of osteoprogenitor cells. Being a simple and minimally invasive technique with lesser complications, this study is intended to evaluate the effectiveness of bone marrow injection in delayed union and non-union and thus decrease the period of morbidity for the patients those are likely to go for non-union.
Aim and Objectives: The study effects of percutaneous bone marrow injection in delayed union and nonunion of long bone fracturesâ€
Materials and Methods: This prospective study was conducted in Pujitha Hospital, Vijayawada over a period of 2 years. We had 34 patients in our series treated by percutaneous bone marrow injection. Based on the amount of initial displacement, communition, soft tissue injury and post op reduction and alignment we graded the cases likely to go in for non-union. Such cases when failed to show expected amount of clinical and radiological union within a certain period we chose them for bone marrow injection. Bone marrow was aspirated from the iliac crest or tibial tuberosity using a bone marrow aspiration needle. Later this marrow aspirate was injected to the fracture site under C -arm guidance. Patients were followed up in the 1st month and then every 3rd month after the procedure and were clinically and radiographically assessed. Cases with pathological fractures, infected non-unions, malignancy and age under 15 years were excluded from our study. The collected data was analysed statistically.
Results and Conclusion: We compared our study with other similar studies. We had 72.7% union achieved, another 18.2% showed progression towards healing and 9.1% showed non-progression for union. Union was better when bone marrow injection was given in a case of delayed union as compared to non-union cases. This is a simple, easy and valuable technique to enhance bone healing and this reduced the period of morbidity due to delayed union and non-union.
