To determine if your quality of life may be improved by a Cellular Orthopedic intervention, a look at an X-ray or MRI is not the answer; a physical examination or several assessments may be needed in addition to reviewing an image.
In a Study: Hip pain and radiographic OA may not correlate reprinted in AAOS Headline News Now-December 4, 2015, Data from a study published online in the journal The BMJ suggest that hip pain and radiographic OA may not correlate in some patients. The research team assessed pelvic radiographs for hip OA among two cohorts: the Framingham Osteoarthritis Study and the Osteoarthritis Initiative. They found that in the Framingham study (n = 946), 15.6 percent of hips in patients with frequent hip pain displayed radiographic evidence of hip OA, while 20.7 percent of hips with radiographic hip OA were frequently painful. In the Osteoarthritis Initiative study (n = 4,366), 9.1 percent of hips in patients with frequent pain displayed radiographic hip OA, and 23.8 percent of hips with radiographic hip OA were frequently painful. The research team writes that hip pain was not present in many hips with radiographic OA, and many painful hips did not show radiographic hip OA. Thus, the evidence suggests that in many cases, hip OA might be missed if diagnosticians rely solely on hip radiographs.
In yet another article featured in the same publication
Study: Worsening lesion status may predict higher risk of knee OA.
According to a study published online in the journal Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, worsening lesion status as determined via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may predict a significantly higher risk of developing knee osteoarthritis (OA) or painful symptoms for patients with at-risk knees. The researchers used MRI to assess cartilage damage, bone marrow lesions (BMLs), and menisci at 12 months (baseline) and 48 months for 849 participants in the Osteoarthritis Initiative who had been determined to be Kellgren-Lawrence Grade-0 in both knees. They found that from baseline to 48-month status, worsening of cartilage damage, meniscal tear, meniscal extrusion, and BMLs was associated with concurrent incident radiographic OA and subsequent persistent symptoms. The researchers write that the findings suggest that such lesions may represent early stages of OA.
In this Blog, I am giving you some of the scientific basis for my reasoning that you allow me to complete a physical examination before I advance a therapeutic recommendation. You may also better understand why one intervention alone may not be the answer as arthritis silently progresses and may not necessarily allow for predictability. It takes an office visit or two or three and maybe yearly to help a patient enjoy the highest quality of life and a menu of services starting with a cortisone injection, next visco-supplementaion and ultimately, stem cell intervention. Some years down the line, that stem cell intervention may need to be repeated.
Tags: arthritis, Benefits and Risk, bone marrow, Bone Marrow Concentrate, Hip, Hip Replacement, Interventional Orthopedics, joint replacement, Knee, Knee Pain Relief, Orthopedic Care, Orthopedic Surgeon, Orthopedics, Osteoarthritis, Pain Management, Pilot Study, Regenerative, Regenexx, stem cells, treatment