Bone loss and bone blood flow in paraplegic rats treated with calcitonin,diphosphonate, and indomethacin

Summary Sham-operated (SO) and paraplegic rats were treated from the day of operation during a period of 4 or 6 weeks with salmon calcitonin 4 IU/kg/day or a diphosphonate (APD) 1mM/kg/day or indomethacin 2.5 mg/kg/day. The consequence of spinal cord section on the femur and tibia is a loss of mineral which affects predominantly trabecular bone (−24 and −13% in calcium content for the tibial metaphysis and the whole bone, respectively, when compared with the SO controls), a twofold increase in bone blood flow as measured by the technique of the microspheres trapping, a moderate decrease of the 72 hour⁴⁵Ca accretion rate in the bone shaft, and an increase in the number of metaphyseal osteoclasts in the tibia. In paraplegics, all three drugs inhibit bone loss to some degree, calcitonin and indomethacin being mostly effective on the cortical bone of the shaft, and APD tremendously increasing the trabecular network of the metaphysis. APD is the only drug to exhibit a significant effect on the calcium content of the bones of the SO controls, but some effect is apparent for calcitonin on X-rays and histological preparations. The increase in bone blood flow in paraplegics is unaffected, this point being discussed in view of the hypothesis of the resorptive action of prostaglandins produced by newly formed vessels.⁴⁵Ca accretion rate increases in the shaft of calcitonintreated paraplegics, whereas it decreases in APD-treated controls and paraplegics. The number of osteoclasts decreases in paraplegics treated with calcitonin and indomethacin, and increases in both controls and paraplegics treated with APD. Thus, APD shows an outstanding effect on the bone loss at the very place where it occurs preferentially in the paraplegics (the trabecular metaphysis), but this and other effects affect the controls as well. Calcitonin and indomethacin act almost selectively on the diseased animals. All three drugs fail to inhibit the bone blood flow increase observed in paraplegics and supposedly associated with bone resorption.