Knee Osteoarthritis

Is Adding HA to PRP for Knee OA Worth the Cost?

One of my jobs at Regenexx is ensuring that our corporate partners spend insurance money wisely on orthobiologics. Basically, the money they’re spending is helping patients avoid more expensive procedures. One of the more popular add-ons to PRP is hyaluronic acid (HA). Is this worth the additional cost? If it makes PRP better, how much…read more

Is Multiple Dose PRP to Treat Knee OA Cost Effective for Health Plan Coverage vs Single Dose?

As the CMO for Regenexx, it’s my job to thread the needle between access to ground-breaking interventional orthobiologics treatments via a self-funded health plan and wasting an employer’s money by authorizing care that we know doesn’t work or doesn’t work well enough compared to traditional surgery. This past year, I have been asked several times…read more

What Does an Advanced Knee Treatment with Orthobiologics Look Like?

All too often these days, someone with knee pain ends up at a clinic where they blindly inject something into the joint. However, real advanced orthobiologics care using PRP or stem cells involves placing these substances precisely in various parts of the knee. Let’s review of few of those spots: Intra-articular or inside the joint…read more

17 Year Follow-up of Expanded MSCs Used to Treat Knee OA

I don’t post that many case reports online anymore because I feel that the field of interventional orthobiologics is well beyond that stage. However, when I had a patient in our early 2007 knee study come back into the clinic for another issue this past week, given that a 17-year follow-up is a first of…read more

We Never Looked: Treating the Joint vs. Joint+Ligs

One of the hardest things to do in orthobiologics is to teach patients that there are major differences between what clinic A offers when it says it can perform a “PRP” injection and what clinic B offers. These two procedures may be wildly different. Today I’ll explore that concept through a medical abbreviation called “WNL”. …read more

Neurotrophin Regulating Drugs to Help Knee OA Pain: What Could Go Wrong?

Should we use drugs that regulate critical receptors or instead focus on things that amp up repair? Today I’ll dive deep into a new drug class now being tested that I call neurotrophin regulators. Let’s dive in. Why Do this Review? As the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for Regenexx, it’s my job to know what’s…read more

Traditional Medicine’s Approach to Treating Knee Arthritis is Blowing Up

Three new studies have recently been added to many others that our current traditional treatment of knee arthritis is probably hurting more people than it’s helping. So let’s explore this morning what’s up. Let’s also explore how you can protect yourself from the medical care system potentially making your arthritis worse. What are the Most…read more

Is PRP Really as Good as MFat for Knee OA?

Two recent studies were published that seemed to show that platelet-rich plasma was as good as a common adipose tissue treatment to treat knee arthritis. However, anytime a study produces a result that goes against what we see clinically, it’s worth digging a bit into how they did the study. Both of these have some…read more