A recently developed surgery technique called “Cellular Grafting” helps the young ones who are suffering of excruciating knee disorders or “Osteonecrosis”. This innovative treatment saves one from knee transplant and other complex surgeries.
The “Cellular Grafting” treatment was applied on three young patients recently who were suffering from steroid-induced osteonacrosis of the knee.Orthopedic surgeon Dr.Stuart Goodman at the Stanford Medical School performed this treatment for the first time.A preliminary report about this experience has also been published in the April issue of the” Journal of Arthroplasty”.
This new surgical technique includes the transplanting of cellular material from the pelvic area in to the knee.Dr. Stuart Goodman kept a systematic track of patients even after two years of performing the treatment and observed that all three patients came back to nearly normalcy and their knee-movements were almost normal with no complications.
Although “Osteonacrosis “is not a very common disorder but continued steroid therapy could more probably result in to this disorder among the young people.This is termed as the ‘secondary osteonacrosis’.Bones in this disorder start decaying in the knee area simply because of depletion of blood supply. It results in severe pain, progressive arthritis, and then it leads to the requirement of artificial joint replacement.
The “Cellular Grafting” based knee surgery is a complete process of around 60 minutes. This process is known as “Osteoprogenitor Cellular Grafting”.It involves scooping out the dead bone and then the space is filled with new cellular matter.”The key is to arrest or reverse the death of the bone”, says Dr. Goodman.If the cartilage is in good condition then it becomes easy to take the dead bone out and the cartilage could be provided a better foundation.Dr. Stuart Goodman further adds,” If you have a salvageable joint in a young knee, you get in viable cells to repopulate that area of dead bone”.
Dr. Stuart Goodman formulated this concept and postulated that compared to the conventional bone-graft technology applications which are more invasive and painful solutions the bone-cells bases “Cellular Grafting” technique is a far better method.The bone cells have young stem cells along with the progenitor cells that are actually capable of growing in to the new bones.Bone marrow was withdrawn from the pelvic area in this technique.Stem cells and progenitors were concentrated and finally the cells were adhered to the defect in the knee area with the help of a scaffolding device.
The success achieved in the treatment of three patients has encouraged Dr. Stuart Goodman and he further recommends that a longer period follow –up study would be more helpful with the involvement of more patients in order to derive new improved methodologies in future.
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Further Reading :
Can this technique applied to femur-head necrosis?