A team of doctors from a city hospital have harvested stem cells from a person using bone morrow from the pelvis area to replace some dead tissues in the hip. In this process, they saved the patient from undergoing a hip replacement.

The Apollo Health City team in India, headed by Orthopaedic Specialist Paripati Sharat Kumar, diagnosed a 39-year-old woman to be suffering from Avascular Necrosis, making her writhe with pain in her two hip joints.  Her condition would normally require undergoing a replacement of both hips.

After assessing her condition, the team decided to opt for an autologous stem cell procedure (where donor and the receiver is the same person) to save both hip joints.

“The minimally invasive procedure involved taking bone marrow aspirate from the patient’s pelvis. Stem cells were harvested from the aspirate through a process that takes about 15 minutes. Stems cells were planted in the area of damage under fluoroscopy control following core decompression,” Sharat Kumar said in a statement on Monday.

He felt that autologous stem cell treatments could edge out joint replacement procedures to a large extent in the future. “The scope of this procedure in orthopaedics and sports medicine is enormous. This could be extended to indications that include osteoarthritis of knee, shoulder, hip, elbows, ankle and spine,” he said.

Article Source: This article was published by The Hindu Business Line on June 30, 2014