great news for knee repair... In their study, Elisseeff and colleagues performed the standard microfracturing technique to repair knee cartilage. On 15 patients, however, the surgeons poured a liquid hydrogel into the torn cartilage. The hydrogel’s polymers had been designed so that when surgeons shined a UV light onto the goop, it hardened into a gelatinous solid, sort of like real cartilage. At the end of the day, it looks like red Jell-O, says Norman Marcus, an orthopedic surgeon on the team. It wiggles when you touch it. The hydrogel goes into the cartilage as a liquid, so it can take on any shape. That’s helpful because the size and shape of the damage varies widely from person to person. Sometimes the rips are round or oblong, other times they’re irregular or even hockey-stick-shaped. Once the gel solidifies, it’s meant to guide tissue regeneration. It provides a physical scaffold for stem cells to attach to, Elisseeff says, and includes chemical and biological factors, such as the chemicals chondroitin sulfate and hylaronic acid, normally found in cartilage, which inhibit the formation of scar tissue. popularmechanics/science/health/breakthroughs/healing-knees-with-light-activated-gel-14958830
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 17:01:07 +0000
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