Help with osteoarthritis through biochemistry

Help with osteoarthritis: Scientists have invented a treatment method. New cartilage substance can be produced in the patient's body.

(07.09.2010) Scientists from the University of Freiburg am Breisgau and the Dutch Maastricht have developed a method that could in future help patients with osteoarthritis and wear of articular cartilage. It can be made very simple and inexpensive cartilage in the body of the patient.

New hope for plagued osteoarthritis patients. Because an arthrosis causes constant pain in motion sequences in patients. One method of treatment was the cultivation of cartilage substance in the laboratory. But this variant is complex, costly and not always suitable for all patients. But scientists around the Freiburg researcher Prasad Shastri have developed a new method in which cartilage substance can be produced quickly and inexpensively from the body's own cells. So Shastri said, "It works better and with ten to twelve days in a much shorter time than any of the methods we know so far." For the treatment, the doctors use a so-called "agarose gel" that comes from biochemistry. The gel is injected into the membrane surrounding the bone surface. This results in new cartilage cells, which are used as a substitute for already damaged cartilage.

The new treatment option for osteoarthritis is called "in vivo bioreactor" and currently has no disadvantages or side effects. The cartilage mass bred in the new way is currently bred mainly for the shin. The resulting cartilage substance is then transplanted to the knee of the osteoarthritis patient. "We are very pleased with the initial results, the method works fast and frees patients from pain and inflammation, and even nine months after treatment, we have not been able to detect calcification," explains Shastri. It will be another two years before the new form of treatment can be offered in hospitals. Before all studies have to be completed. (Sb)

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