Stem cell hope for fixing injured knees
April 27, 2008 12:00am
Byline: Evonne Barry
Intro: A WORLD-FIRST trial to be conducted in Melbourne could
revolutionise the treatment of chronic knee injuries using adult stem
cells.
Body: Up to 60 Victorians are to trial a simple injection scientists
believe could replace drugs - and even surgery - in treating
debilitating osteoarthritis.
It could also prolong the careers of athletes, including AFL players,
regularly sidelined by common cartilage tears.
Melbourne-based biotechnology company Mesoblast recently completed
successful animal trials of the hi-tech procedure and believe there
is a "billion-dollar market" for their technique.
The Australian trials found the injection of adult stem cells - taken
from human donors' bone marrow, abdominal fat, hip, skin or teeth -
protected damaged knee cartilage for up to nine months.
Professor Silviu Itescu, Mesoblast's director and chief scientific
adviser, said the injected stem cells bound themselves to the
cartilage, halting its degeneration.
"Is it that the cells are protecting the cartilage, or is it
accelerating the rate of repair? At the moment, we don't know," he
said.
"Either way, the result is more cartilage, thicker cartilage."
Leading sports physician Dr Peter Larkins said stem cell therapy had
the potential to prolong athletes' careers.
"In terms of medical breakthroughs, it's a sensational prospect, if
it works," he said.
The human trials, to be conducted in Melbourne and in the US, will
involve about 80 patients aged 45-55 who have had knee arthroscopes
in the previous month.
That is the surgery track star Jana Rawlinson famously underwent to
compete in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Dr Peter Ghosh, Mesoblast's
chief cartilage scientist, said the weeks after arthroscopic surgery -
- which typically involves the removal of a cartilage called
meniscus - was the ideal time to test the injection of cells.
"As you get older, (meniscus) degenerates but, more commonly in
younger people, it is also torn. It is a very common injury for
football and netball players," he said.
"When it's torn, it can lock the joint and give you pain and symptoms
and the joint blows up. It has to be removed."
However Dr Ghosh said the surgery, known as a meniscectomy, often
fast-tracks the development of osteoarthritis, the degeneration of
joint cartilage that affects about 1.3 million Australians.
"So football players and men and women in the street who have had
this operation live in fear that when they reach 50 or 60, they'll be
faced with this debilitating disorder."
If the trials are successful, Dr Ghosh said the "off-the-shelf"
product would be on the market by 2012 and could treat "any joint
that can be injected".
http://www.news.
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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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