Methods to promote bone healing in patients with diabetes

Researchers at Stanford have developed methods to promote bone healing in people with diabetes. Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disease associated with many clinical complications including impaired bone healing. In fact, poor fracture healing is a major cause of morbidity in diabetic patients and a growing medical problem worldwide. Therefore, it is of great clinical interest to develop therapeutics to restore bone healing. To help meet this need, the inventors have taken advantage of their recent work. They have discovered that hedgehog signaling is deficient in skeletal stem cells in diabetic patients. This leads to impaired fracture healing. With this technology, they have developed methods of administering a hedgehog agent at the injury site to reverse these deficiencies and enhance bone regeneration. This method provides the potential to improve bone healing in diabetic patients.

Stage of research
Using diabetic mouse models, the inventors have shown that administering a hedgehog agent to the fracture rescued bone healing.