Stem Cells Knee Repair
Knee cartilage is a highly resilient tissue that is necessary to absorb high amounts of stress throughout our lives on a regular basis, needing the ability to withstand heavy loads and impacts that we subject our body to through any number of actions. Unfortunately it is also a non-regenerative tissue and if damaged or worn-down through years of hard usage or other complications such as disease or nutritional deficiency it can easily cause a wide number of problems and, in extreme situations, even cause immobility.
While a number of surgical options have been available for some time in order to assist with mending cartilage tissue damage there has been no way to actually repair any cartilage damage to its proper complete state. Further, while some of these surgical options can be done arthriscopically (by making small 1cm incisions in the areas surrounding the knee and inserting small instruments into the knee cavity to conduct repairs) more extreme damage requires highly invasive procedures that can take months to recover from and after which individuals may never fully recover to their pre-damaged level of use.
Recent developments in autologus stem cells, however, are proving promising in terms of being able to regenerate damaged cartilage tissue. Originating from a patient’s own body, autologus cells have virtually no risk of be rejected by the patient as they are simply modifications of cells already existing within their system. Further, there is no risk of any disease transmission through the use of autologus cells due to the fact that they do not come into contact with any outside source. Their nature also allows them to be more easily studied and implemented in treatment procedures due to the fact that they are harvested from and re-implanted in adult bodies and therefore are free of much of the negative stigma associated with other forms of stem cells.
Current focus for stem cell cartilage treatment is on the usage of autologus mesenchymal stem cells due to their promising results in animal studies. A clinic in Colorado has also reported numerous successes in the usage of autologus mesenchymal stem cells to regenerate knee tissue in many patients. Unfortunately due to the relatively new nature of the treatments as well as the limited ability to know of long-term effects of the stem cell treatments the FDA is engaged in an ongoing debate over their continued usage within the US and whether or not they are truly a viable, healthy method of treatment.
Subscribe to the comments for this post