Orthopedic Stem Cell Use Soared in 2012 | Orthopedics This …

US Navy Aircraft / Source: Wikimedia Robin Young Fri, January 25th, 2013 Print this article

When 2012 began, an estimated 1 million U.S. patients had been treated with stem cells over the course of the previous 15 years. By the end of 2012, Orthopedics This Week estimates that that number of patients treated rose by an astonishing 100,000!

Physician users now number in the thousands. Indeed, it is harder to find physicians who have NOT used stem cells than those that have.

Who is using stem cells? Where are they getting the cells? For which indications are cells being used? What is appearing in peer review literature?

Answering those questions is, in effect, the curriculum for this years New York Stem Cell Summit February 19th.

As we have analysed the remarkable uptake of stem cell treatments in orthopedics, we are left wonderingis this, in effect, the next generation platelet rich plasma (PRP)?

Users

Spine surgeons, ophthalmologists and wound care specialists are currently the most frequent users of stem cell therapies in the United States. Coming up fast, however, are oncologists, cosmetic surgeons and pain management specialists.

Spine surgeons and sports medicine specialists are the two groups weve observed, exhibiting strong adoption patterns and pushing this remarkable uptake in stem cell usage. One common attribute weve noticed is that users of stem cell therapies are also current (and former) users of Infuse and various allograft products.

So, as a foundation for bringing stem cells into their practice, these physicians are almost universally well trained and well experienced in the use of either allograft or recombinant products as adjuncts to surgery which serve to augment the patients own ability to grow either bone or soft tissue.

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Orthopedic Stem Cell Use Soared in 2012 | Orthopedics This ...