Patients
Your Cells – Your Health: Biological regeneration of articular cartilage using your own cells.
Articular cartilage lines the ends of the bones in moving joints and facilitates smooth movement. It is unable to regenerate itself once it is injured or damaged and over time, it may cause limited mobility and pain. See how Spherox can help you regenerate your cartilage damage by using your own cells to regain an active life.
TREATMENT PROCESS
What is Spherox?
Spherox is a personalized medicinal product that can help regenerate painful cartilage defects. It contains tiny pearls formed of cartilage cells and cartilage material, called spheroids, that have been prepared from your own healthy cartilage tissue. The treatment is based on a surgical technique called matrix-associated autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI). Spherox must be prescribed by a doctor. An MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) will help your doctor decide if Spherox is appropriate to treat your cartilage defect.
What Does The Treatment Process Look Like Step By Step?
1. Cartilage Biopsy
Your doctor will remove a small cartilage sample from a healthy area of the affected joint. This is usually done as keyhole surgery (arthroscopy). A blood sample will be collected as well.
2. Pharmaceutical Manufacturing From Your Cartilage Cells
The sample of healthy cartilage and the blood sample will be sent to the manufacturer, CO.DON GmbH. In the manufacturing facility, your cartilage cells will be isolated and cultivated from the biopsy material using the blood sample and condensed into spheroids (three-dimensional cartilage cell implants). The process takes about 6 to 8 weeks. The product is entirely autologous (i.e. derived from you own body) and free of foreign substances.
3. Implantation and Beginning Of Cartilage Regeneration
The spheroids are sent to your doctor who will place them into the defect during a second operation. This may also be carried out by keyhole surgery. The spheroids naturally adhere to the defect and form new cartilage that integrates with the existing, healthy cartilage. The new cartilage is comparable to the characteristics of healthy cartilage.
4. Road To Recovery
After implantation, the cartilage will need some time to regenerate. In order to allow your joint to recover well, you will have to follow an individual rehabilitation program. During the rehabilitation period, the amount of weight you can put on the joint will increase gradually. The program is tailored to your healing process. Your doctor or physical therapist will advise you.
Why cartilage damage can occur
Articular cartilage is the strong and shiny surface that lines the ends of the bones in moving joints and which facilitates smooth movement. It can be damaged for different reasons like acute or repetitive injuries, chronic strain or degenerative diseases which can lead to cartilage defects. The consequence: the cartilage is no longer able to perform its function, possibly causing limited mobility of the joint, pain and swelling. It can also cause a joint, such as the knee, to lock, catch or give way.
Because cartilage does not have a blood supply it is unable to regenerate itself once it is injured or damaged.
Patient Stories
Professional ice hockey player Christopher Fischer suffered a knee injury with cartilage damage during the 2012 ice hockey season and reports on his successful return to sports after treatment of his cartilage defect with Spherox.
„I feel great. I am over 30 now and I can still do athletic training, jumps and sprints. I'm thankful that my knee can still take it all. I want to play professional hockey as long as I can. I think it's also great for the family and for my son, who can see me playing ice hockey. A life without sport will not be possible for me."
Christopher Fischer, professional ice hockey player
See his patient video story below.
55 Chapel St., Suite 100, Newton, MA 02458