Electrical stimulation of onlay bone grafts

An animal model was developed to determine the ability of capacitively coupled electrical fields to enhance onlay bone graft survival in the craniofacial skeleton. Fifteen male New Zealand white rabbits were divided into control and stimulated groups. Blocks of iliac bone were transplanted as onlay grafts to the mandibular rami. In all animals a capacitor apparatus was attached externally over the right mandibular ramus; however, a 5-V peak-to-peak sinusoidal signal was applied only in the stimulated group. The experimental period was 6 weeks, with a total of 30 days of constant stimulation. Graft resorption in the stimulated animals was decreased a total of 24.8 percent (p less than 0.001). There appeared to be a trend toward decreased graft resorption caused by the apparatus alone, although this was not statistically significant. The electric field alone decreased resorption by 11.5 percent (p less than 0.05). No distinguishing features were demonstrated by fluorescent vital stains or routine histology.