Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Cartilage surgery can save athlete's joints

There is good news for sports-persons with cartilage injuries in India. At a conference held in Hyderabad, experts including Dr.Venkatachalam of KneeIndia.com discussed the potential of stem cells in bone and joint problems.
One such problem is cartilage injuries of the knee joint. The Knee joint is often injured in sportsmen or even in normal individuals. Ligament and cartilage injuries often occur concomitantly. Although Ligament reconstruction like arthroscopic ACL reconstruction could rectify damaged ligaments, cartilage injuries were left untreated till now.
Reparative cartilage surgery procedures like micro fracture are used by surgeons in low demand patients to repair these lesions by an inferior substitute called fibro cartilage.
Now surgeons like Dr.Venkatachalam in association with "Regenerative medicine services" a company based in India offer restorative cartilage surgery procedure called 'Chondron'
This procedure consists of two operations. During the first, the surgeon will harvest a small piece of cartilage through key hole surgery from the knee. He will then send it to the laboratory for tissue culture. The tissue regenerates 12 to 48 million cartilage cells in about 4 to 6 weeks. These cells are implanted in a scaffold medium into the cartilage defect in your own joint.
Over the next four to six weeks you will be asked to remain non weight bearing and given physiotherapy. The defect is restored to normal tissue during this period.
Progression of the defect to Osteo arthritis or joint failure is thus averted. You could return to sports or normal life.
For queries send an email to drvenkat@kneeindia.com
Visit http://www.kneeindia.com
http://www.kneereplacement.co.in

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