Being Honest with Patients about Stem Cells for Knee Arthritis
We’ve been treating knees with stem cells for 6 years, so we have more knowledge about where they work and don’t work than any other clinic in the United States. We’ve seen many clinics popping up using adipose derived stem cells (which the research shows aren’t as effective as bone marrow cells for orthopedics) and have observed that many of these clinics are misleading patients with magical claims of effiicacy not based on any data they’ve collected nor that has been published, but simply based on what they’ve been told by the company selling them the adipose processing kit. Over the weekend, I picked up this post on the KneeGeeks site that I think very nicely sums up our approach. We always provide our patients with an honest upfront opinion of whether they’re a GOOD, FAIR, or POOR candidate for a stem cell based injection procedure. The vast majority of patients we speak to are placed into the FAIR or POOR categories based on the severity of their disease, our clinical experience, and our published data. If you have severe knee arthritis and are seeking a stem cell knee arthritis treatment and find your self being told that you’re an excellent candidate for stem cell injections, take a minute to read our top 10 questions to ask about orthopedic stem cell therapy.
Here’s the post:
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Re: Regenexx injections – Stem Cells
« Reply #284 on: July 24, 2011, 01:27:17 AM »
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I had a consultation with Dr. Hansen from their clinic in May of 2011. I had a left knee with stage four osteoarthritis and seventeen degrees of valgus in the tibia.
Dr. Hansen informed me of the procedure that he would use for the cartilage repair – adipose graft and then stem cell injections. He also informed me that in his opinion I was a poor to fair candidate for the success of the graft and stem cell injections. Additionally, he did point out my valgus and indicated that even with the clinic’s procedures I would need a tibial osteotomy to correct the valgus.
As a result of this consultation I can certainly say that I was disappointed with the low probability of success and I was impressed with Dr. Hansen’s honesty about the need to correct the valgus. Because of his honesty I had a TKR on June 20, 2011 performed by … in Houston, Texas. It is not what I wanted but my discussion with Dr. Hansen made me realize the appropriate choice for me.
As such, my impression regarding Centeno-Schultz is that they are honest, have the ability to properly diagnose a condition and obviously are not so greedy that they would tell me that I would be an excellent candidate.
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