Published on Dec 2, 2014
Shane Shapiro, M.D., orthopedic physician at Mayo Clinic in Florida, discusses a regenerative medicine clinical research trial to treat knee arthritis, which is the bone marrow stem cell treatment (BMAC) for knee osteoarthritis.

Mayo Clinic and the Mayo Center for Regenerative Medicine is studying biologically based non-surgical treatments for osteoarthritis. One such treatment is the harvesting of the patient’s own stem cells from their bone marrow.

“In our procedure we draw cellular rich bone marrow from both sides of the pelvis. We then filter the resulting product and concentrate the stem cells and their corresponding growth factors. Using an ultrasound to image the knee joint, we are then able to precisely inject the cells into the arthritic knee. We are currently demonstrating that this procedure is safe and can relieve pain. We also hope to be able to slow the progression of the degenerative joint disease and perhaps one day regrow cartilage in the arthritic joint.”

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See video of this process here: https://youtu.be/yUfuhLOgeBw (WARNING: graphic due to the nature of actual surgery footage)