Sustained delivery of growth factors and prostate tissue response - biomed 2010

Recently, the use of growth factors to repair tissue has shown promising results in areas of musculoskeletal repair. The use of local administration of growth factors has the potential to become systemic and target growth factor sensitive tissue. Prostatic tissue has been shown to be sensitive to insulin like growth hormone-1 (IGF-1) and transforming growth factor beta (TGF-ss). These growth factors have been shown to mediate androgen action within the prostate. The growth factors were administered locally in a sustained fashion four weeks in a degenerative disc rat model. After 28 days the prostates were harvested and the tissues screened for ultrastructural changes and compared with control animals. The prostate of growth factor treated animals had significant hyperplastic and dysplastic changes that were not evident in the prostate tissue retrieved from control animals. Further studies are needed to determine the significant long-term effects of local growth factor treatments on various organs which are growth factor sensitive.