Research progress and literature review of animal models of osteoporosis / 中国组织工程研究

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Osteoporosis, known as "a quiet epidemic disease", is an "invisible killer" that impairs the health of the elderly. Fracture as the most dangerous complication of osteoporosis is not only a medical problem, but also a serious social problem. OBJECTIVE: To summarize the selection, establishment methods, characters and evaluation of the animal model of osteoporosis. METHODS: A computed-based search of CBM, WanFang, VIP, CNKI and PubMed databases was conducted for the relevant articles published from January 1986 to December 2016 using the keywords of "osteoporosis, animal models" in English and Chinese, respectively. Finally 39 articles were included for result analysis after reading the title and abstract. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Animal experiments play an important role in the studies of osteoporosis, so a desirable animal model should hold similarity, reliability, repeatability, applicability, controllability, efficacy and economy. Osteoporosis is a progressive and long-lasting disease that has different characteristics at different stages. But an animal model only simulates one etiology, one stage, major symptoms and pathophysiological changes, and cannot exhibit the whole pathological changes. The current study suggests that animal species and modeling methods can affect the characters of models, and there is a lack of standards for animal age, feeding methods, modeling time and assessment.