George M. Weisz MD FRACS BA MA, Marina-Portia Anthony MBBS BSc (Med) MPH FRANZCR, Michael Huang MB BS FRCR FRANZCR
In the last hundred years, the science of fracture repair has significantly changed. Management has moved from a simple metabolic and hormonal concept of bone regeneration to an inflammatory concept and now to a more complicated immunological description. Fracture repair has been considered age-dependent and related to diabetes, nutrition, hormone connection, autoimmune diseases, rheumatic arthritis, and nicotine. Recently a new branch of medicine, osteoimmunology, which deals with the mechanism of fracture repair, has been introduced.