When the Regenexx Procedure Doesn’t Work…
This past week or so I’ve highlighted some great success stories and long-term results. However, every medical procedure known to man has a success and failure rate. This is why we routinely publish outcome data which contains the average of patients who did well, those that did OK, and those where the procedure was ineffective. This morning I’d like to highlight a patient who was treated down in Grand Cayman who got no meaningful results. Why post about when the Regenexx Procedure doesn’t work? Because it provides patients the balance they need to decide if Regenexx is right for them.
First, I’ve blogged on other treatment failures many times in the past (see here, here, and here). This morning’s patient AB is a middle aged man with a history of four prior knee surgeries. While he had a metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure and prediabetes), the good news is that he had lost 35 pounds. His MRI showed almost full thickness loss of cartilage in the outside compartment of the knee, multiple areas of degeneration in what was left of his meniscus tissue (much of which had been removed in the prior surgeries) and his exam showed laxity in multiple important knee ligaments causing knee instability. The patient underwent a Regenexx-C cultured procedure back in January 2015 and recently he reported no positive results.
So what happened? Looking at our registry data on about 600 patients treated with this type of stem cell therapy, the severity of his arthritis doesn’t predict a bad outcome. Any stem cell therapy that uses the patient’s own cells is always only as good as the health of the cells. It’s certainly possible that the accumulated toll of the patient’s metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure and pre-diabetes) had reduced the activity and potency of his stem cells.
The upshot? No medical nor surgical procedure known to man works every time and our procedures are no different. We go out of our way to publish our results both online and in the peer reviewed scientific literature. These results contain all patient results that we have been able to obtain – which always includes patients who did well balanced by patients who had less of a response. Despite that transparency, it’s always best to post patient’s treatment failures to balance posting successes. While other clinics who treat arthritis patients don’t discuss treatment failures, since we’ve been doing this longer than anyone else, we feel the need to lead by example.
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NOTE: This blog post provides general information to help the reader better understand regenerative medicine, musculoskeletal health, and related subjects. All content provided in this blog, website, or any linked materials, including text, graphics, images, patient profiles, outcomes, and information, are not intended and should not be considered or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please always consult with a professional and certified healthcare provider to discuss if a treatment is right for you.
