Improved Treatment for Oestoarthritis possible with regeneration of Joint Cartilages, Research results prove positive
A disorder of breaking down of the cartilage which protects the joints due to age or injury resulting in bone-on-bone friction mostly in knees, hip joints, spine & hand joints accompanied by sharp pain is known as Osteoarthritis or commonly pronounced as Arthritis.
This disorder can affect any joint of the body; researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC have found a way of delaying joint degrading in an animal model by using a bio-implant which is stem cell-based, to repair the cartilage of the affected joints.
This bio-implant consists of embryonic stem cells having the power to regenerate the degenerated cartilages of affected joints; these off-the-shelf bio-implants will revolutionize the Osteoarthritis treatment.
Results of the research have been published by the “NPJ Regenerative Medicine Journal”, a grant of $6 million from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) will aid the moving forward of the research into human beings.
MD, PhD, associate professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Director of the Skeletal Regeneration Program & Vice-Chair for research of Orthopaedic Surgery Denis Evseenko & Frank Petrigliano, MD, associate professor of clinical orthopaedic surgery & chief of the USC Epstein Family Center for sports medicine were the two lead researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
A therapeutic bio-implant named “Plurocart” is under development at USC, which will aid in the Joint Preservation Technology; this bio-implant contains stem cells-derived chondrocytes scaffolded as a membrane which will produce healthy articulated cartilage tissue.
USC officials informed that this had been tried out with pigs & it was noted that these living cell type orthopaedic implants managed to get themselves fully integrated with the cells of the damaged cartilage tissue & survived for a longer period in it.
Previous experiments could not achieve these survival ranges of the period in the Vivo mimicking the natural articular cartilage of the affected joint; the resulting regenerated cartilage tissue cells were found to be good both functionally & with enough strength to bear the compression of movement without breaking.
“Plurocart” is suggested to be a one-stage therapy being actually more effective in restoring the affected joint cartilage tissue with good results from the regenerated cartilage tissue. The first human testing will be done on 64 affected joints as soon as a grant of $6 million is received from CIRM.