OBJECTIVETo explore the feasibility of repairing alveolar cleft bone defects with bone marrow stromal cells.

METHODSTotal 7 patients of alveolar cleft were included in this study. The hBMSCs were isolated by percoll gradient centrifugation from patient's bone marrow aspirated from iliac crest. The hBMSCs were cultured in vitro and induced to become osteogenic cells in the DMEM medium containing 10% self-serum, beta-glycerophosphate (10 nmol/L) dexamethasone (10(-8) mol/L) , L-2-ascorbic acid(50 micromol/L), and 1, 25 (OH)2 VD3 (10 nmol/L). Induced hBMSCs of passage 3 were harvested and seeded onto partly demineralized allogenic bone matrix (pDBM) to form a cell-scaffold construct and in vitro co-culture for 1 week. The defects were repaired with the cell-scaffold construct. All cases were followed up for 3, 6 months post-operation as short-term evaluation and 1 to 3 years post-operation as long-term evaluation by three-dimensional computerized tomography (3D-CT) and clinical examination.

RESULTS3D-CT demonstrated that engineered bone was formed in 3 months post-operation. Additionally, formed bone maintained stable up to 1 - 3 years without absorption.

CONCLUSIONSEngineered bone can be used to repair clinical alveolar cleft bone defects.