Oswestry scientist to study causes of chronic back pain
An Oswestry scientist has been awarded a grant from the Arthritis Research Campaign to find out more about the causes of chronic back pain, which affects millions of people in the UK.
Dr Sally Roberts, director of spinal research at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in Oswestry, has been awarded a £116,000374 three-year grant from the medical research charity to research the role of cell failure in intervertebral discs.
Intervertebral disc are the small pieces of fibrocartilage in between vertebrae, which allow the spine to bend and be flexible. But when they wear away, the bones in the spine rub together, often causing pain.
A large proportion of back pain is caused either directly or indirectly by the breakdown or degeneration of intervertebral discs, which is due ultimately to disc cell failure.
"Cells of the disc are responsible for producing and maintaining its structure, however cells in the disc are few and far between and are often found to be unhealthy, particularly when people develop certain disc diseases," explained Dr Roberts.
Cells in the body can die in different ways; it can happen in a controlled and planned way (apoptosis) which does little damage to the cell's surroundings, or it can be totally uncontrolled (necrosis) where the cell breaks open traumatically, usually causing damage to the surrounding tissue. Dr Roberts plans to study how cells die in the disc, as little is known of this.
"We plan to investigate how these cells die in human discs with different diseases, and also study living disc cells in the laboratory to identify what factors make them die, and in what way." she added. " This should help us understand how cell death happens in disc cells, and whether the process can be reversed, which would have a major impact on the millions of people who suffer from chronic back pain."
According to the Arthritis Research Campaign, back pain accounts for more than 100 million lost working days in the UK, representing more than nine billion pounds in lost production. More than two and half million people went to their GP in the past year because of back pain.
