Fig. 3

Representative H&E and Masson’s Trichrome stained sections of the left distal femurs of rabbits cut in the sagittal plane in each group at 3 and 6 weeks after implantation. In each image, the proximal section is displayed on the right and the dorsal section is displayed on the upper parts of the figure. The dotted box in the low-powered view (2×) indicates the range of high-powered view. The high-powered views (20×) were captured randomly from inside the implanted β-TCP areas for quantitative evaluation. The uniformly-stained tissue area, pointed by arrows, indicate newly formed trabecular bone structure. At 3 weeks after implantation, stained tissue areas were recognized as new bone area was significantly increased in groups containing rh-BMP-2 (f, h,n, and p). New bone area only remained in groups treated with both rh-BMP-2 and ZOL (d’ and f’) at 6 weeks after implantation. Note: H&E, Hematoxylin-Eosin; rh-BMP-2, recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein 2; ZOL, zoledronate; β-TCP, β-tricalcium phosphate