Human-to-Human Disc Transplantation
 

Hello everyone

Just doing a bit of a research here and thanks to Mark I have seen info about the clinical trial (only on 5 people) they have done in China for cervical disc transplantation. They had good results 5 years after surgery but it's only on 5people. They have now transplanted on 5 more people with a more advanced technique and monitoring them. I was wondering if there are other clinical trials taking place in other parts of the world involving this technique. I have a feeling it won't be an easy progress considering artificial disc manufacturers may be trying to avoid or slow down the progress of this method. Sometimes I lose faith in the human ace when I see what pharmacetucial companies do.
Any info will be greatly appreciated..

Thank you

Sonata
c5-c6, c6-c7 prolapsed discs, and some bone spurs

P.S Mark you are so wondeful to have started this website for educating and helping us. Thank you once again.

Sonata... I'm sorry I missed this thread. I've been running too hard lately...

This is a very interesting technology. I saw a presentation on it at NASS in Austin last October. http://www.globalpatientnetwork.com/.../index.shtml#6

There were MANY more than 5 patients... the also had 43 month follow-up for 13 additional patients and more that were less than 43 months out.

Keep in mind that they are actually slicing out the entire unit... endplate, disc, endplate. So to do the implantation, they are not just doing a discectomy, they are removing the endplates of the vertebral bodies.

I can't imagine that this will be widely used because of the requirement for healthy endplates and discs... it almost requires a young donor as DDD is so prevalent in people beyond 50. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. Another issue will be the risk of failure... if the graft doesn't take, how serious are the consequences since you've destroyed the entire system???

Mark

PS... you are very welcome, I'm glad you are finding the site helpful.

Hi Mark

Good to see you back. Thanks for all this updated info. It's so depressing sometimes to see different treatments with different advantages but having at the same time different disadvantages. I really hope for all our sake for the ADR technology to be the "cure" for all spinies. I hope they will solve the facet degenaration problem that is mentioned in some of the cases because of ADR. Do you have any idea if they are working on this? And do you know anybody who did the cervical adr at Alphaklinik and ended up with facet deganaration? Mine is double the trouble, I need 2 levels done and I have some bone spurs to be cleaned out as well. But they say if you do not have pain, preemptive action is not reccomended. At the moment my symptoms (which were slight pins and needles feeling on my left arm, no pain) have diminished tremendously. I've been at home rest for a month now. Now if I get the adr I might end up having pain which I never had before..that is a possibility isn't it or am I wrong? Eventually as I age more (I am 39 now) , my bone spurs will become bigger and chances are high I will need this operation. Whi knows may be much earlier. I am then only thinking about Alphaklinik and you as my advocate. At the moment I am almost symptom free but something in me has changed forever after this diagnosis. Depression it is I guess...I am hoping to recover from soon.

If you have any info on anybody with adr from Alphaklinik I would love to hear their stories. I read some at Alphaklinik's website but they are not mentioning if they are compelety pain free and only a few cases are mentioned..

Thank you very much again Mark.

Sonata

and also
 

Don't forget about the donor match and tissue rejection issues.

johnb

Yes donor match (it's a geometric issue) is an issue but tissue rejection hasn't been a problem at all in the clinical trials because there's no blood supply to the disc (that' what I read from the doctor in HongKong who does this).

Anyway..this option seems too far away :(. But I am sure they'll figure out a way someday. In the meanwhile let's hope all the problems with ADR is resolved and it will regarded as a cure rather than treatment.

Sonata