Stem Cells Greatly Increase Bone Healing Process
In February the Orthopaedic Research Society meeting revealed that of 145 patients who had an unhealed bone fracture – half of them for six months or longer – 93 percent showed significant healing and pain control after being on teriparatide for only eight to 12 weeks.
Teriparatide, or Forteo, was approved by the FDA in 2002 for the treatment of osteoporosis. While using this drug to treat osteoporosis, Susan V. Bukata, M.D., medical director of the Center for Bone Health at the University of Rochester Medical Center Bukata began to notice that patients were seeing unusually fast bone healing, and much less pain.
This would be a sort of in-the-body way of jump starting stem cell therapy for bones and our natural healing processes. Something that would make the lives of many much more comfortable.
“It takes three to four months for a typical pelvic fracture to heal. But during those three months, patients can be in excruciating pain, because there are no medical devices or other treatments that can provide relief to the patient,” said Bukata. “Imagine if we can give patients a way to cut the time of their pain and immobility in half? That’s what teriparatide did in our initial research.”
Bukata also said that those who may be confined to nursing homes, or wheel chairs int he past may be able to live an independent life if this treatment is as effective as it was in their research.
“Many people don’t realize that pelvic fracture carries with them the same mortality as hip fractures – in one year, approximately one-quarter of all older women with pelvic fractures will die from complications,” Bukata said. “And during that year of recovery, a patient typically puts a greater strain on our health care system, not to mention their pain and suffering.”
She believes that this drug would pay for itself by reducing stays in nursing homes. If it were to reduce a stay by just one week it would pay for itself. Quality of life would also be improved significantly.
While people try every type of discount supplements they can find to relieve pain to save money, this research may do just that.
Read more about the ongoing research here.
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Filed under: Science by JMH
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