Abstract

Deproteinized bovine bone mineral (DBBM) is brittle and can break into fragments. Here, we examined whether DBBM fragments have an impact on mice calvarial bone during bone augmentation. DBBM was either randomly crushed (DBBM fragments) or left undisturbed (DBBM granules). Then, DBBM fragments or original DBBM granules were placed onto calvarial bone in 20 BALB/c mice. Following random allocation, ten mice received DBBM fragments and ten mice received original DBBM granules. After fourteen days of healing, micro computed tomography (micro-CT) and histological analysis of the augmented sites were performed. The primary outcome was the porosity of the calvarial bone. The micro-CT analysis revealed that DBBM fragments failed to significantly change the porosity of the calvarial bone as compared with original DBBM granules, despite the slightly higher bone resorption in the DBBM fragment group, 10.3% (CI 6.3-11.6) versus 6.1% (CI 4.1-7.8, p = 0.355), respectively. The cortical bone volume was not altered by DBBM fragments as compared with original DBBM granules, i.e., 79.0% (CI 78.9-81.2) versus 81.5% (CI 80.1-83.3, p = 0.357), respectively. The DBBM fragment group revealed similar bone thickness values as compared with the DBBM granules group, i.e., 0.26 mm (CI 0.23-0.29) versus 0.25 mm (CI 0.22-0.27, p = 0.641), respectively. The histological evaluation supported the micro-CT observations, displaying minor signs of porosity and resorption. The particle-size distribution analysis confirmed a shift towards smaller particle sizes in the DBBM fragment group. These findings suggest that DBBM fragments behave similarly to original DBBM granules in terms of bone morphological changes at augmented sites.