The bone-healing effect of a xenograft in a rat calvarial defect model

Abstract

Bone grafts have been widely used to fill osseous defects in medicine, dentistry, and periodontology. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a xenograft (Unilab Surgibone®) on experimentally created parietal bone defects in rats. To this end, 14 rats were employed in the present study and in each of them, 5-mm-diameter defects were created on the parietal bone. The right defect sites were filled with the xenograft material, while the left sites were used as control. After 30 days, the rats were sacrificed and tissue samples were retrieved from the defect sites of the cranium. Dense collagenous tissue was observed in the control area, whereas the xenograft particles were surrounded by a fibrous tissue layer at the implantation site. Based on the findings obtained, it could be concluded that the investigated xenograft seemed biocompatible and could be proposed as a potential material for filling osseous defects.