Histomorphometric evaluation of the effect of doxycycline on the healing of bone defects in experimental diabetes mellitus: a pilot study.
OBJECTIVE
Bone healing is impaired in diabetes mellitus, particularly due to increased collagen breakdown. Recently, tetracyclines have been used to treat experimental bone defects because they have anticollagenolytic properties, and positive effects on the healing process have been obtained. The objective of this study was to develop a computer-assisted histomorphometric technique to quantitatively determine the amount of regenerating bone within experimental bone defects in a diabetic rodent model.


METHODS
This study examined the effects of systemic doxycycline administration on the healing of tibial bone defects in healthy albino rats and in experimentally induced diabetic rats. Twenty-four female albino rats were assigned to 4 groups: diabetic, diabetic plus doxycycline, control, or control plus doxycycline. The standardized bone defects were histomorphometrically examined 10 and 30 days postoperatively. Histomorphometric analysis of the amount of new bone formation was performed using the Zeiss Vision image analysis program KS 400 (Kontron Elektron GmbH, Eching, Germany).


RESULTS
At 10 days of healing, the diabetic groups exhibited inferior healing compared with the control groups in terms of the amount of new bone formation within the defects. However, the effect of doxycycline administration to the diabetic and control groups was not statistically different. At 30 days of healing, there were no statistically significant differences between the amount of newly formed bone in any of the groups.


CONCLUSIONS
This study found that doxycycline administration did not significantly alter the amount of new bone formation during the healing of bone defects in control and diabetic rats.
Alkan
Alper
A
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Ondokuz Mayis, Samsun, Turkey. alpera@omu.edu.tr
Erdem
Erdal
E
Günhan
Omer
O
Karasu
Cimen
C
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001847:Bone Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D001861:Bone Regeneration / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D003921:Diabetes Mellitus, Experimental / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004318:Doxycycline / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D005260:Female; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D010012:Osteogenesis / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D011897:Random Allocation; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013311:Streptozocin; D013977:Tibia / Q000187:drug effects / Q000473:pathology; D013997:Time Factors; D014945:Wound Healing / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology
D000900:Anti-Bacterial Agents; D013311:Streptozocin; D004318:Doxycycline