Oswestry scientists in bid to improve ground-breaking surgery
SCIENTISTS in Oswestry plan to examine new ways of improving a groundbreaking surgical technique being undertaken at a local hospital.
The technique of "growing" a patient's cartilage cells and injecting them back into the damaged cartilage, often as a result of trauma or sports injury, has been carried out at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital for the past few years.
Orthopaedic surgeons at the hospital carried out the first four operations on patients' knees in 1996.
Since then more than 80 such operations have been done, and surgeons in Oswestry now perform between 30 and 40 a year, usually on the NHS. The aim of the procedure is to get patients pain-free and mobile again, and enable some to resume their sporting careers that would otherwise have ended prematurely. It also prevents progressive damage to the area surrounding the joint, which can develop into osteoarthritis of the knee.
The technique is currently being evaluated by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.
And while other centres in the UK now also perform the technique, known as autologous chondrocyte implantation or ACI, Oswestry is the only orthopaedic hospital to develop the cartilage growth in-house, without using a commercial biotech company.
Now Dr Sally Roberts, Clinical Scientist at the RYAH Hospital has been awarded a grant of £32,788 from the Arthritis Research Campaign to undertake a two-year study to find ways of improving the technique.
"Clinical results of ACI appear very encouraging, and yet we know little of the actual process which is going on in the grafted area," explained Dr Roberts. "Nor do we know whether the cartilage that forms there is of good quality, similar to the rest of the joint, of softer, weaker cartilage that is not as likely to last.
"We propose to carry out a detailed study on very small biopsies of the grafted material (with the patient's full consent) to understand the repair processes, so determine its long-term success, and find better ways of doing it. Currently, patients have to undergo two types of surgery - if this could be cut down to one, it would make it cheaper, more successful - and more widely available."
