Combination of heel strike-like mechanical loading with deproteinized cancellous bone scaffold implantation to repair segmental bone defects in rabbits

Under physiological conditions bone defects often occur at mechanical load bearing sites and bone substitutes used for regeneration should be similarly subjected to mechanical loading stress. In this study, we investigated whether a novel heel-strike like mechanical loading method can be used as a complementary therapy to promote bone regeneration following bone substitute grafting.