Bioplasty for vertebral fractures: preliminary results of a pre-clinical study on goats using autologous modified skin fibroblasts.

The debate is still ongoing about the long term effects of the mininvasive vertebral augmentation techniques and their usefulness in treating more complex cases where a bone inducing effect more than a merely bone substitution would be suitable, such as the vertebral fractures in young patients. We previously developed a clinically relevant gene therapy approach using modified dermal fibroblasts for inducing bone healing and bone formation in different animal models. The aim of this study is to show the feasibility of a minimally invasive percutaneous intrasomatic ex vivo gene therapy approach to treat thoracolumbar vertebral fractures and anterior column bone defects in a goat model.