Vascular control of osteogenesis

Abstract

The factors of stress and immobilization (Table 23.1) are clearly important stimuli affecting the operation of Wolff’s law. Rubin & Lanyon (1987) are of the opinion that bone remodelling is regulated by an equilibrium between a systemic tendency towards bone resorption and mechanically derived stimuli driving bone formation. This allows them to explain such phenomena as disuse osteoporosis resulting from immobilization or weightlessness. At a mechanical equilibrium the amount of bone production is determined by the relative activities of osteolytic and osteogenic processes. Many hypotheses have been promoted to explain Wolff’s law phenomena, but whilst most can explain bone formation in response to load, they often fail to explain bone resorption in absence of load.