Bilateral ovario-hysterectomy induced osteoporotic rabbit model

Abstract

Rabbit models have been proposed for the study of postmenopausal osteoporosis by bilateralovariectomy with reduced dietary calcium intake or glucocorticoid administration. However, restrictingdietary calcium intake or administering a glucocorticoid can cause secondary osteoporosis and is notrepresentative of a pure postmenopausal osteoporosis model. The aim of this study was to establish anexperimental rabbit model of osteoporosis induced by ovario-hysterectomy alone. Fourteen female NewZealand rabbits were separated into two groups of a sham (control) group and an ovario-hysterectomyinducedosteoporosis group. Tibiae were extracted 24 weeks after ovario-hysterectomy and were scannedby micro-computed tomography. The evaluation parameters were bone mineral density (BMD), trabecularbone volume (BV/TV), trabecular number (Tb.N), trabecular thickness, and trabecular separation (Tb.Sp). The tibial samples were evaluated after hematoxylin and eosin and Masson’s trichrome staining. Thesham group had significantly higher BMD, BV/TV, and Tb.N values and the lowest Tb.Sp value comparedto the ovario-hysterectomy group. The histological analyses revealed a loss of the bony trabeculae andan increase in osteoporotic changes in the bone of the ovario-hysterectomy-induced osteoporosis groupcompared to the control group. Our results indicate that an ovario-hysterectomy-induced rabbit modelwould be a safe, reproducible model for postmenopausal osteoporosis studies.