Until the body establishes a blood supply to it, the new bone is a high-risk environment for bacterial infection. About 35 percent of these patients get infections. Bone transport patients always have a blood supply to the growing bone, which allows the immune system to take care of any infection. This method has been used successfully in people with bone loss from trauma, such as motorcycle accidents. It has never been done with chemotherapy.
Bone cancer has to be treated with chemotherapy.
We are researching this limb-sparing option for dogs, but it may also benefit humans. Bone cancer affects children more often than adults, and children are still growing. This technique would allow new bone in kids to grow out to equal length as the opposite limb. If it turns out that chemotherapy hinders new bone growth, Dr Ehrhart's research should be able to find out why. By comparing groups of control dogs and chemotherapy dogs, she hopes to isolate proteins responsible for bone growth.