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Background: Bone mineral density at the humeral head is reduced in patients with chronic rotator cuff tears. Bone loss in the humeral head is associated with repair failure after rotator cuff reconstruction. Bisphosphonates (eg, zoledronic acid) increase bone mineral density.
Hypothesis: Zoledronic acid improves bone mineral density of the humeral head and biomechanical properties of the enthesis after reconstruction of chronic rotator cuff tears in rats.
Study design: Controlled laboratory study.
Methods: A total of 32 male Sprague-Dawley rats underwent unilateral (left) supraspinatus tenotomy with delayed transosseous rotator cuff reconstruction after 3 weeks. All rats were sacrificed 8 weeks after rotator cuff repair. Animals were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 groups. At 1 day after rotator cuff reconstruction, the intervention group was treated with a single subcutaneous dose of zoledronic acid at 100 µg/kg bodyweight, and the control group received 1 mL of subcutaneous saline solution. In 12 animals of each group, micro-computed tomography scans of both shoulders were performed as well as biomechanical testing of the supraspinatus enthesis of both sides. In 4 animals of each group, histological analyses were conducted.
Results: In the intervention group, bone volume fraction (bone volume/total volume [BV/TV]) of the operated side was higher at the lateral humeral head (P = .005) and the medial humeral head (P = .010) compared with the control group. Trabecular number on the operated side was higher at the lateral humeral head (P = .004) and the medial humeral head (P = .001) in the intervention group. Maximum load to failure rates on the operated side were higher in the intervention group (P < .001). Cortical thickness positively correlated with higher maximum load to failure rates in the intervention group (r = 0.69; P = .026). Histological assessment revealed increased bone formation in the intervention group.
Conclusion: Single-dose therapy of zoledronic acid provided an improvement of bone microarchitecture at the humeral head as well as an increase of maximum load to failure rates after transosseous reconstruction of chronic rotator cuff lesions in rats.
Clinical relevance: Zoledronic acid improves bone microarchitecture as well as biomechanical properties after reconstruction of chronic rotator cuff tears in rodents. These results need to be verified in clinical investigations.
Demenz und Mobilität
(2018)
Structural transition in Austrian society in the larger context of demographic change and growing demands on infrastructure, organization and planning in the public sphere have been discussed profusely in recent years in the context of some projects. While a number of national and international research projects especially focussed on the older age groups and their requirements for staying mobile by developing solutions on the individual, technological and infrastructural level, solutions for people who suffer from cognitive impairment as a result of dementia are still missing. The Austrian research project KOMPETENZ takes the first step in identifying the requirements that people with dementia, their caregivers and other relevant stakeholders in this context have towards public space in order to be able to maintain physical mobility of people affected by dementia. One of the main outcomes of the project included an assessment methodology linking barriers and collective mobility needs to high potential solutions, which supports all relevant stakeholders in the process.
The overall impression of a glossy surface is an important parameter for consumer’s choice of wooden products. A new gloss parameter, called gloss impression, which calculates a reflexion structure image, was developed in order to complement the measurements made by industrial glossmeters, which are highly limited in describing the visual human perception, for example the commonly used gloss value. The objective of this study is to investigate to what extent the new measurement method of surface gloss is applicable to describe human gloss perception, in other words, to validate the new method. In order to analyse the concordance of the new methodology with human perception, 113 naïve observers had to rank the glossiness of eight series of black and white samples. The results were compared to both gloss impression and gloss value. The statistical evaluation by means of Pearson’s chi-squared tests revealed that the new method has an overall better correspondence to human perception than the gloss value. For black samples, it describes human perception significantly better than the gloss value and gives better results than those which would be achieved by guessing.