Biochemical and biomechanical evaluation of human pericardial membrane and demineralized bone matrix in rabbit calvarial defects

Regaining adequate bone strength, in bone loss, is one of the main purposes for new bone regeneration in bone tissue engineering. Biomechanical hardness test can be one approach to assay bone consistency in new bone formation. In addition, following up the serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) alterations may help us in order to evaluate bone formation activity. In the current research, two groups of five male white New Zealand rabbits were studied. Two defects, 8 mm in diameter each, were made in each rabbit calvarium, one defect was filled with either human pericardial collagen (HPM) or demineralized bone matrix (DBM), and the other one was left empty as control. Every 10 days post-surgery, the serum ALP level was assessed, for 60 days. After performing euthanasia on day 60, the specimens were sent for biomechanical hardness test. The results for the DBM containing group were better than the HPM containing group in both biomechanical and biochemical tests. However, they were not statistically significant (p?>?0.05). In the biomechanical test, all the experimental groups, in both DBM and HPM, had significantly more hardness than the control (p?