INFLUENCE OF SODIUM FLUORIDE ON HEALING OF EXPERIMENTAL FRACTURES - IN RATS, SQUIRREL MONKEYS, AND DOGS

Fluoride therapy strengthens callus formation in clinical bone fractures and, when given in large doses prior to experimental animal fracture induction, accelerates fracture repair. Small doses of fluoride were administered after the surgical production of femoral bone fractures. Fluoride-chloride therapy, a dietary supplement, administered in low concentrations (2.27% sodium fluoride and 97.73% sodium chloride) over long periods of time (35 days), accelerated the bony repair process in experimentally induced fractures of the femur in rats, squirrel monkeys, and dogs. Radioautographic, x-ray, gross, and microscopic tissue studies revealed a much better and further developed callus formation associated with thickened trabeculae in the older animal femoral fractures. Accelerated repair with thicker bony trabeculae might occur in clinical cases of traumatic and spontaneous bone fractures if such patients were placed on a moderately elevated fluoride-chloridecalcium therapeutic regime. This clinical approach is being planned in a geriatric series of cases. © 1969 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.