PhysioUpdate News 30th January 2024

Technological advances mean that traditional joint replacement operations could become redundant in the coming years, according to the authors of a popular article that recently won an award.

The paper – titled ‘3D bioactive composite scaffolds for bone tissue engineering’ – received a Best Paper award from China-based company KeAi as part of the publisher’s 10-year anniversary celebrations.

It was originally published in the Bioactive Materials medical journal in 2017 and was selected from more than 200 papers that have appeared during the last decade.

The paper – which has accrued more than 1,100 citations from other orthopaedic specialists and researchers, making it a landmark paper in its field – explores the prospect of three-dimensional biological printed hip and knee joint replacements being mixed with a patient’s own biological cells.

The researchers investigated using 3D bio-printing technology with patient stem cells and other substances found in bones in order to create ‘scaffolds’ that could promote regeneration in the body.

The number of patients with hip fractures in Scotland is going to surge over the next decade, according to the results of a study published in The Bone & Joint Journal earlier this month (1 January). The increase will result in an annual NHS shortfall of more than £25 million, according the four authors from the Scottish Hip Fracture Audit, Public Health Scotland.

One of the authors is Luke Farrow, a clinical research fellow at the University of Aberdeen who chairs the Scottish Hip Fracture Audit Quality Improvement and Research Sub-group, which led the research. He said: ‘A clear, comprehensive national plan is needed now to manage the future burden of hip and other fragility fractures.'  

Dr Farrow and his colleagues used data from the Scottish Hip Fracture Audit from 2017 to 2021 and statistical forecasting techniques to predict the annual number of hip fractures from 2022-2029. Their analysis showed that from 2017–2021 the number of annual hip fractures increased from 6,675 to 7,797 - and forecast this would rise to 10,311 by 2029 (a 32 percent increase from 2021). Extrapolating from these figures, they predict there will be 28 hip fractures a day, up from 21 at the last count.