Ranging from great to very good. My practice is to follow- up all of my patients at fixed intervals whenever possible so I might monitor results and intervene on a timely basis should I conclude that a booster would be beneficial. To help assess all patients at the get- go and on an on going basis, I make use of a physical therapist/OCS, the latter having advanced certification in orthopedics. My methodology allows me to integrate clinical care with ongoing surveillance of outcomes hopefully leading to the best possible results and patient satisfaction.
On Friday of last week, I presented the one-year outcome of those hips and knees wherein I provided Stem Cell intervention and, was able monitor the results. What I have learned is what I presented at the Regenerative Orthopedic meeting in Los Angles. First and foremost, while the goal of Cellular Orthopedics would be a Biologic Arthroplasty; that is to regrow the cartilage altered by an arthritic process, patients may and do enjoy pain relief, improved motion, better functional capacity and return to increased activity with Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate/Stem Cell Intervention at 12 months even prior to our having scrutinized the MRI. I don’t expect Maximum Medical Improvement from the application of Stem Cells for 18 months following the procedure, but the clinical responses have been so gratifying that the Macroscopic regrowth of cartilage in the clinical setting may be academic. Should we see cartilage regrowth at 18 months on an MRI that would be very rewarding, but should all of our pretreatment clinical goals be met, “that would be sufficient”. Documenting the relief of pain, improvement of motion, return to fitness, athletics and sports while eliminating the need for symptom altering medication is very personally rewarding. I didn’t report the results of concentrated stem cell plasma at the meeting as I only introduced the latter option into my practice last fall so the observation time is less than a year. Suffice it to say though that my preliminary results when using C-SCP for those patients who don’t lend themselves to the BMAC intervention are equally gratifying.
Are there bad results? You bet and I evaluated such a 40-year-old patient last Monday. He had found a stem cell “expert” on the Internet attracted by the web site and had undergone a “stem Cell” procedure using stem cells harvested from the tibia without fluoroscopic guidance for bone marrow placement in to the arthritic hip. The Regenexx process is not just stem cells; it is a fully integrated program including a preliminary step, a harvesting of cells of bone marrow from the richest source of bone marrow derived stem cell s in the adult, a concentration, a counting of nucleated cells, image guided intervention and a follow-up procedure. Don’t be fooled, your first question, “show me your data”.