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Young patients with knee disorder can get active with cellular grafting

Adam Vasser of Los Altos, California, was an active kid with a flair for baseball until one day when his heart was attacked by a mysterious virus requiring a need for a heart transplant. He underwent steroid treatment in the long term for preventing rejection of transplant leaving him to lead his life with osteonecrosis, an excruciating knee disorder.

Now at 23 and undergoing 15 knee and heart surgeries, he is back to play baseball again, all due to a new technique known as cellular grafting.

From News-Medical.Net:

The new surgical technique involves transplanting cellular material from the pelvic area into the knee. Two years after surgery, Goodman said, all three patients had returned to nearly normal activity and knee function with no complications.

“It’s a fairly simple procedure,” said Goodman, the Robert L. and Mary Ellenburg Professor in Surgery at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Osteonecrosis of the knee is a rare disorder. When it occurs in young people, it’s most often the result of steroid therapy and is called secondary osteonecrosis. The bones in the knee start to die from a loss of blood supply, leading to severe pain, progressive arthritis and eventually the need for artificial joint replacement.

“Many patients do OK without surgical treatment,” Goodman said. “With those patients, I wait and prescribe pain medication.” But for young patients who still have a lifetime of activity ahead of them, Goodman wanted alternatives.

The 60-minute surgery, known as osteoprogenitor cellular grafting, involved scooping out the dead bone and thereafter filing the space in with a new cellular matter. It was theorized by Goodman that use of bone cells is better than using traditional bone grafting for these kinds of cases. A longer-term follow-up study with a larger number of patients was recommended by Goodman, an orthopedic surgeon Stuart Goodman, MD, PhD.