Sep-2018
Doctors use lab-grown cartilage to heal knee injury
For the thousands of Canadians who suffer serious knee injuries each year, their only option is often surgery to replace the damaged joint with a plastic or metal implant.
But a team of doctors in Hamilton, Ont. are the first in Canada to try out a novel approach: growing sheets of cartilage in a lab using a patient’s cells and then cutting custom-fit implants from the patient’s own DNA.
The method is currently being tested across North America on 230 patients with knee injuries. Doctors say that if the study is successful, lab-grown cartilage could become a common way to treat a host of joint problems, from ankles to elbows to shoulders.
Typically, treatment involves drilling into the damaged area of the knee, thereby allowing scar tissue to form. If everything goes according to plan, the scar tissue helps relieve discomfort until the patient is able to receive a knee replacement.
But a different solution was open to Lakhi — one that didn’t require a knee replacement. St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton is involved in a randomized, clinical trial that would allow doctors to carefully fill the tiny cartilage “pothole.”
In August, surgeons in Hamilton collected a tiny sample of healthy cartilage from Lakhi’s knee and sent it in a test tube to a clinic in Pittsburgh. There, a team of scientists harvested the cartilage into a larger sheet and sent it back to Canada.
Doctors in Canada then cut a tiny piece of cartilage from the sheet to plug the hole in Lakhi’s knee. The surgery went “very, very well,” Dr. Adili said.
“We were ecstatic, especially being the first in Canada to do it,” he added.
“The hope is that when it grows, and it heals back into that defect, it’s going to be his normal cartilage, and he’s back to where he was before this injury.”
The trial is still in its early stages. Lakhi and 230 other patients will be tracked for the next two years to determine if the transplants worked.
To read the full CTV article, click here