New bone formation in the female rabbit tibia.

The current study aims to evaluate the new bone formation in polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) grafts inserted into the tibia of ten female rabbits. The animals were submitted to oophorectomy in order to induce an osteopenic condition and densitometrically analyzed at the beginning of the experiment, at three months and at seven months. During the 16 weeks of osseointegration, the animals were submitted to subcutaneous injections of three bone markers at one-week intervals, four weeks for each. Before the third densitometric analysis, the animals were sacrificed and material was collected for histological evaluation, in which osteoid formations and mineralized bone tissue were observed surrounding the grafts, even within the medullary cavity. Only small quantities of new bone were found in the osteopenic animals, indicating the high osteocondutivity of PVP and its efficacy in inducing osteopenia. Among the samples with no graft, a high level of disorganization of the material was observed in the oophorectomized group, confirming the efficacy of oophorectomy.