Israel Medical Association Journal

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.

There are numerous experimental studies on the effect of immune modulation on the skeleton but few clinical ones.

In this letter, we supplement the previous information on enhanced bone healing. A new branch of medicine, osteoimmunology, describes fracture healing as an active immune system process evolving in a cascade of repairs.

A review of the literature on the effect of immune modulation on the skeleton shows disappointing results.