Can bisphenol A diglycidyl ether (BADGE) administration prevent steroid-induced femoral head osteonecrosis in the early stage?

Steroid-induced osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) is associated with increase of intraosseous pressure caused by elevating of adipogenesis and fat cell hypertrophy in the bone marrow, which subsequently decreases the blood flow in the femoral head and finally resulting in bone ischemia. The early femoral head-preserving method has mainly focused on the conventional core decompression procedure. However, it only achieves a slight decrease in intra-medullary pressure with limited clinical outcome. The crucial point in prevention is to achieve a thorough decompression of intra-medullary pressure and improvement of microcirculation of the femoral head. Bisphenol-A-diglycidyl ether (BADGE), an antagonism of PPAR-gamma(Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma), has been shown to successfully reverse bone marrow adipogenesis and fat cell hypertrophy, enhances proliferation of osteoblasts, inhibit osteoclastogenesis. Therefore, we hypothesized that BADGE administration may be an appropriate novel method for the prevention of early stage steroid-induced ONFH. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.