Complication Rates

How Another Bad Surgical Orthobiologics Paper Can Teach Us About QC

If there’s one journal that keeps regularly getting it wrong on orthobiologics, it’s the journal Arthroscopy. So let’s dig into a recent paper published in that journal. By understanding why it can’t support its conclusions we’ll learn quite a bit about the quality control of a bone marrow aspiration. Why? Because if you’re a doctor…read more

ANOTHER Study Shows Fusion Is an Expensive Tip

What if a very invasive spine procedure became common to treat degenerative disease despite a high complication rate and multiple studies showing it was ineffective? This would make little common sense, right? However, that’s what has happened with Lumbar Fusion. Now yet another new study shows it doesn’t work. Let’s dig in. What Is DDD…read more

Checking the Clinical Outcome of Our Network Sites

One of the things that makes Regenexx VERY DIFFERENT is our Clinical Registry and uniformity of treatment across the network. Today I’ll show you how we use this data to help our network sites maximize their outcomes. Let’s dig in. What Is a Treatment Registry? A Treatment Registry is a system that pings patients to…read more

Stimwave: Is the Explosion of Stimulator Placement for Chronic Pain Good or Bad?

I write often enough that unless I’m passionate about what goes on the page, it’s hard to keep up. This is one of those blogs that will upset a significant number of my physician readers but because my “Irish is up”, it needs to make it to a blog. The topic is the explosion in…read more

The Evidence Supporting Common Orthopedic Surgeries Is AWFUL

I’ve been blogging on the evidence base behind orthopedic surgery for years and I’ve taken HUGE amounts of flak from a handful of orthopedic surgeons who don’t like my approach. Now a new British Medical Journal study confirms what I’ve been saying for the last decade-plus, common orthopedic surgeries have embarrassingly poor evidence. Let’s dig…read more

Do Orthopedic Stem Cell Treatments Really Have High Complication Rates?

Part of my job is looking at what’s being published in the world of orthopedic autologous cell therapies. Most of the time there is a steady flow of research supporting the safety and efficacy of various types of therapies and some research that doesn’t support this or that clinical application. However, every once in a…read more

That Second Knee Replacement Could Be a Problem…

The problem of a younger person getting a knee replacement has always been, what happens when the surgery needs to be redone? Meaning that most honest surgeons try to steer their patients to get a knee replacement surgery when they are as old as possible. Now new research adds weight to that decision-making process. Let’s…read more

SI Joint Fusion Complications? Why Are We Doing this to Patients?

One of the biggest issues I see is how easily interventional pain physicians have been lured in by quasi-spine surgeries that they know are bad for their patients. A case in point is SI fusion. Let’s dig into SI joint fusion complications through a case posted on LinkedIn. What Is the SI Joint? The acronym…read more