In what I think is a major medical breakthrough, British scientists are using adult stem cells to avoid hip replacements.
Doctors in Southampton are using the pioneering technique, where a patient’s damaged bones are repaired using their own stem cells.
Patients hailed the treatment, after many found they could walk normally again without any pain and without the need for hip replacement surgery.
So far six patients have had the treatment with only one failure, doctors said.
The numbers are small but the prospects are huge.
Under the treatment, surgeons at Spire hospital used purified cells from bone marrow extracted from the pelvis.
The stem cells, which are immature cells that can develop into different kinds of tissue, were then mixed with “cleaned, ground-up” bone from another patient, after they had a hip replacement operation.
They then finished with dead tissue being removed before surgeons filled the cavity with the mixture of stem cells and donated bone.
--
Prof Oreffo, who is currently leading a team researching how stem cell technology can be used to repair human skeletal tissue, told Sky News that stem cells used chemical signals to attract blood vessels.
"Bone is a living vibrant tissue. These stem cells generate new tissue and drive new blood vessel formation to bring in nutrients," he said.