Fig. 4

The expression profile of factors involved in inflammation, angiogenesis and osteogenesis change with the progression of healing, e.g. from 4 to 7 days, in the fracture haematoma and is also dependent of the healing progression. The cytokine pattern in a normal, undisturbed healing differs from one in a mechanically induced delayed healing. For statistical analyses of data, medians were calculated for each group per time point. Statistical comparisons between the groups were performed using the Mann–Whitney U-test (SPSS 22; SPSS, Inc., Chicago, IL). (For a detailed description of these experiments please consult (Lienau et al. 2009; Lienau et al. 2010; Schmidt-Bleek et al. 2012a; Schmidt-Bleek et al. 2012b))