New stem cell treatment 'being used by patients to avoid hip replacements'

September 5, 2009 by srrpenna

Doctors in Southampton are using the pioneering technique, where a patient’s damaged bones are repaired using their own stem cells. Patients hailed the treatment, after many found they could walk normally again without any pain and without the need for hip replacement surgery.

So far six patients have had the treatment with only one failure, doctors said. Under the treatment, surgeons at Spire hospital used purified cells from bone marrow extracted from the pelvis. The stem cells, which are immature cells that can develop into different kinds of tissue, were then mixed with “cleaned, ground-up” bone from another patient, after they had a hip replacement operation

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