Bowman doctor brings stem cell therapy to North Dakota …

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Dr. Forrest Lanchbury, a specialist in anti-aging and regenerative medicine and medical director at Bowmans Southwest Healthcare Services, looks on as registered nurse Chrissy Blankenbaker works on a plasma-rich platelet procedure on Jan. 29 at the facility. Lanchbury and his team became the first to offer stem cell and PRP therapy in North Dakota in November. (Nadya Faulx / Forum News Service)

BOWMAN, N.D. -- Southwest North Dakota is a place known more for its oil industry than its health care, but one doctor is putting the region on the map with a new cutting-edge medical procedure that's attracting patients from across the state.

Dr. Forrest Lanchbury and a team of nurses now provide stem cell therapy to patients at Bowman's Southwest Healthcare Services, making it the only facility in North Dakota to offer the procedure, in which a patient's own stem cells are injected to a specific site in order to encourage healing.

Lanchbury, the facility's medical director, performed the first stem cell therapy in November, and has performed five total since the procedure became available.

"Everybody was really interested in it," he said, "and impressed with the potential to help patients."

Stem cell therapy is used to treat a multitude of ailments, from heart disease to neurological disorders, but Lanchbury said most of the patients who have undergone the procedure in Bowman do so to treat osteoarthritis and other joint diseases.

Stem cells multiply rapidly and can turn into other types of tissues and cells, depending on what needs to be healed, Lanchbury explained, meaning they have "the potential to heal any type of damaged tissue."

"Most healing takes place in any place in our body is done by stem cells," he said. "A cut, any injury to a tendon or ligament, or arthritis -- stem cells are involved within the body in healing that."

The process is deceptively simple: It involves harvesting an adult's own stem cells via liposuction (stem cells are also found in bone marrow, but are more plentiful in fat), mixing them with platelet-rich plasma and injecting the solution into the tendon or joint being treated.

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Bowman doctor brings stem cell therapy to North Dakota ...