The canine ulnar defect model seems to be suitable for bone healing studies and studies evaluating the effect of BMP, but the intramedullary fixation method seems to be suboptimal. It seemed to relieve the pain of the animals, but the lack of rotational stability and the pin breakages were uneventful outcomes.
Autograft is better than allograft in healing bone in segmental ulnar bone defects, and they both resulted in acceptable healing of the defect. Xenograft seems to be clearly inferior to both auto- and allograft as a bone graft.
Coral was superior to both hydroxyapatite and tricalcium phosphate as a bone substitute material in bone defects.
Bovine native BMP had a positive effect on bone healing in canine ulnar defects, but it was unable to heal the defect completely with any of the carriers.
Bovine native BMP enhanced the efficacy of coral and hydroxyapatite as bone substitute materials. The composite implant of coral and BMP seemed to be best bone substitute in this study. It worked very well even in a clinical case of intractable ulnar non-union. The resorption of coral material seems to be suitable to enhance new bone formation and bone healing.