Jul 14, 2009 8:56 am US/Eastern
Go! New York: Adult Stem Cells Help Ease Arthritis
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
As the arthritis epidemic grips hold onto the baby boomer generation, new stem cell research is becoming the cutting edge way to treat osteo-arthritis of the knee, hip, ankle, and even back pain.
But this research doesn't include the same embryonic stem cells that couldn't be used for research during the Bush administration. Instead, the developments use adult stem cells to help treat baby boomers like Robert Wilson.
Years of sports left Wilson with a couple of pretty bad knees,
"I couldn't bend my knees, I couldn't kneel on my knees, and I couldn't bike. I couldn't even walk for very long," Wilson says.
The 52-year-old was looking at knee replacements in his near future until he came to the Rocky Mountain foothills near Denver where a pioneering clinic is using adult stem cells to treat orthopedic problems.
Dr. Christopher Centeno at the Centeno-Schultz Clinic says that the cells are used to form new cartilage or even repair torn ligaments.
"They actually may make new cartilage or repair a ligament by becoming a piece of that ligament or a tendon or a bone if there was a defect in bone," Centeno says.
Wilson made the first step a few weeks ago when doctors extracted adult stem cells from bone marrow in his hip.
After the stem cells are extracted from the patient's own bone marrow, they're brought to this lab where they're grown in special tissue cultures to multiply their numbers. The doctors want to make sure there are millions to inject back in.
Wilson now receives a series of injections that deposit his stem cells in the arthritic areas, and because they're his own cells, there's no risk of rejection or contracting infectious diseases.
Knee MRI's of other patients have shown where new cartilage is growing in and x-rays of broken arms that wouldn't heal have revealed new bone after stem cell injections.
The new stem cell injections have even helped back pain patient Kim Gillman go from being bedridden a year ago after spinal disk surgery to jogging every day.
"This pain was beyond anything I could possibly comprehend," Gillman says, referring to her life after surgery. "It was truly crippling and more frightening than anything I could have experienced in my entire life."
The promise is so great that more than a 1,000 clinical trials are testing stem cell therapy. That's why a company called Neostem has begun banking people's own adult stem cells now, before they're needed.
"You don't want to wait till it's too late. You don't want to wait until your stem cells or your body damaged, has a cancer," Dr. Robin Smith, CEO of Neostem, says. "You want to do that today before you get exposures that could damage your DNA and your stem cells."
Another advantage to storing or using your own stem cells is that they are your own cells so there's no risk of rejection or contracting infectious disease. There are even clinical trials showing promising results using adult stem cells for heart failure, diabetes, lupus, MS and even macular degeneration.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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