Research

A Deep Dive into the Data Supporting the Use of Mfat in MSK Disorders

One of my day jobs is the Chief Medical Officer of Regenexx, hence I must know what’s been published on every possible technology we could use to help our patients. One of those is called MFat. What’s been published and how does that compare to technologies like PRP? Let’s dig in. What is MFat? MFat…read more

Medicare Finally Handcuffs the Birth Tissue Scammers

It’s taken several years of tracking the great birth tissue scam to see it finally come to some conclusion. When we last left off, the scammers who tried to get Medicare reimbursement for things like Wharton’s Jelly to treat knee arthritis had hit a serious snag. Now that little problem has turned into a massive…read more

Can You Use Chat GPT to Write Scientific Papers?

Six months ago I tried to use ChatGPT to write a summary of the medical research on a topic. It failed miserably and perhaps the worse thing was that it made up fictional scientific references that didn’t exist. That was ChaptGPT 3.5, so now that I’ve been using ChatGPT 4 for some time, it’s time…read more

Marx, Platelet Concentration, and Fake PRP

Image created with ChatGPT 4.  An astute physician colleague this week pointed out that one of the references in my past blog about fake PRP impacts the results of clinical trials needed updating. Hence, in researching that issue this week, I thought this topic would make a great blog. So, how do we define the…read more

New Study of Many Cell Therapies Versus Steroid Yields Interesting Results

We’re entering a time where we will continue to see large, high-quality studies published in orthobiologics. This has been happening in the PRP world for the last half-decade or more, but it is also about to happen in the world of bone marrow, adipose stromal vascular fraction, and umbilical cord stem cells. Another entry in…read more

Is PRP a DMOAD? The Influence of Platelet Concentration on Study Failure

The holy grail of osteoarthritis research has long been a Disease Modifying OsteoArthritis Drug or DMOAD. This is a medication you can take or inject that would slow or prevent the onset of wear and tear arthritis. A big question for doctors who have observed the power of orthobiologics is whether PRP is a DMOAD.…read more

2023 PRP RCT Infographic and Study Failure Analysis

Almost every year, I try to spend significant time diving into the literature on interventional orthobiologics and summarizing it. This helps me understand where we are in the evolution of the literature and hopefully provides some insight into what’s working and what’s not. This year I summarized the entire published literature on PRP injections for…read more

Is There Solid Research on Using PRP to Treat Spinal Pain?

Art: Credit Dall-E with the prompt: “A human spine in 3D surrounded by red blood cells in the style of impressionism.” As you know, I often write about what I experience. This week an interventional spine physician questioned whether PRP would be useful in the treatment of lumbar radiculopathy or painful facet joints in the…read more