How cartilage from youngsters is now being used to ease the pain of people with arthritis
Human tissue that is normally tossed in the trash is used to ease the pain of knee arthritis.
Researchers take cartilage — the tough, flexible substance that cushions joints — from the inside of discarded healthy joints and use it to replace worn-out cartilage in patients with osteoarthritis of the knee.
The technique involves extracting healthy cartilage from fingers and toes surgically removed from people born with extra digits.
The condition, polydactyly, affects up to one in 1,000 babies, either due to a genetic trait or an error in the developmental process.
As a baby forms in the womb, the hand takes the shape of a paddle, which later disintegrates into separate fingers. Sometimes a single finger or toe splits again, creating an additional appendage.
Researchers take cartilage from healthy joints that have been discarded and use it to help treat arthritis patients (file image of arthritic knees)
About nine million people in the UK have osteoarthritis, where the protective cartilage in a joint breaks down, causing the bone to rub painfully against the bone (file image)
This excess digit is sometimes fully developed, with normal bones, blood vessels, muscles, and nerves. Doctors normally surgically remove such digits around age two and dispose of them as medical waste.
But new research, published in the journal npj Regenerative Medicine, suggests that recycling these joints may help osteoarthritis patients avoid knee replacement surgery.
All ten patients treated with tiny sheets of cartilage made from unwanted fingers and toes as part of a pilot project at Tokai University in Tokyo, Japan, subsequently showed complete regeneration of their own cartilage in damaged knees over the following 12 months, with one replacement knee joint needed.
About nine million people in the UK have osteoarthritis, where the protective cartilage in a joint breaks down, causing the bone to rub painfully against the bone. It often arises from wear and tear; other factors include being overweight, a family history, and sports injuries.
Anti-inflammatory painkillers help, but can damage the stomach if taken for a long time. Steroid injections to dampen inflammation risk a cortisone burst, where the steroid (cortisone) crystallizes in the joint, causing more inflammation.
In the UK, around 100,000 people with osteoarthritis each year undergo knee replacement – a major operation that can leave a foot-long scar, with full recovery taking up to a year.
To explore alternative treatments, the Tokai University team collected discarded fingers, removed the cartilage and extracted cells (called chondrocytes), which can turn into healthy new cartilage.
The cells were grown in a lab to form tiny ‘sheets’ of cartilage that were implanted into the knee joints of volunteers.
After 12 months, scans showed that the new cartilage had continued to grow in all ten volunteers, replacing their own worn-out cartilage.
Controls using the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Score (which measures pain, stiffness and mobility) showed that all 10 were also largely pain free and enjoying a better quality of life. No adverse effects were reported.
“This has the potential to allow people to walk on their own knees for their entire lives, without the need for artificial joints,” says researcher Professor Masato Sato.
Professor Paul Lee, an orthopedic surgeon based in Harley Street, London, and visiting professor of medical engineering at the University of Chester, told Good Health that unwanted cartilage is usually destroyed, adding: ‘This is an excellent way to recycle it so that the cartilage can be used as an alternative to joint replacement.’