Jul 25 2009
Stem-Cell Surgical Thread
HealthyDay has an aticle on the latest use of stem-cells.
A team of John Hopkins University undergraduates developed a method to embed someone’s stem-cells into surgical thread. The 10 Biomedical Engineering Students (I don’t think this was even offered as a major when I was in college) developed the procedure as part of a contest sponsered by a medical technology company, Bioactive Surgical, Inc.
The stem-cells are taken from a patient’s bone marrow and then woven into surgical thread. The thread is then used as normal, primarily in repairing ruptured ligaments and tendons. Recovery times from these types of injuries can take up to a year. Using stem-cells taken from the patient in the surgical thread used to repair the injuries could result in quicker heal times as well as better results.
Using stem-cells taken from the patient in order to avoid rejection problems, probably limits the use of this technique to major surgeries and injuries that have long recovery times. Obtaining bone-marrow from the hip to obtain the stem-cells is itself an invasive and painful procedure.
The procedure was invented by Dr. Lew Schon, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
The students have applied for a grant to study other applications of the stem-cell thread. The thread could have uses in cardiology and obstetrics as well as orthopedic surgery.
