Ultrasound microbubbles for bone fracture part 2
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Ultrasound microbubbles for bone fracture part 2
IRAS ID
337520
Contact name
Nicholas D Evans
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Southampton
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Bone fractures are a huge problem. They cost ~£2 billion/year in the UK. A big part of this cost comes from non-union or delayed-union bone fracture, which affect about 5-10% of cases. These poorly healing bone fractures are devastating for the person affected, sometimes taking many years of major surgery and extensive rehabilitation. There are no drugs and very few therapies that have been proven to be efficacious in improving healing in non-union or delayed union. One reason that they may not heal properly may be a lack of site-specific drug delivery, nutrient transport or mechanobiological stimulation at the site of injury. We want to try and improve this by developing ultrasound-responsive microbubbles that are carried to the site of fracture and may be triggered to promote nutrient uptake, mechanobiological stimulation and delivery using clinical ultrasound devices. In our previous IRAS application 290051, we asked an answered the question: can we deliver and track ultrasound-responsive microbubbles at a bone fracture site? In a group of 8 patients we found that the answer was yes.
Now we wish to quantify how much perfusion there is at different times after breaking a bone. This is part of our longer-term aim to develop a method for site specific activation of microbubbles in patients. To achieve this, we intend to:
• Recruit patients with fracture in the tibia, humerus, radius or ulna bones
• Inject patients intravenously with ultrasound microbubble contrast agents (‘MBs’; these are clinically approve formulations that are routinely used for ultrasound imaging in cardiovascular medicine) at different times after a bone fracture
• Image using ultrasound at fracture gap before and during injection at different times after bone fracture.REC name
London - Bloomsbury Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
24/LO/0351
Date of REC Opinion
4 Jun 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion