Exciting recent news has seen a new and interesting technology involving the use of stem cells has been applied in the treatment of patients afflicted by complicated bone fractures. The technology was developed by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and it is anticipated that the use of the new technology will result in patients injuries healing much more rapidly in specific case treatments.

The technology itself sees the isolation of the stem cells themselves from the bone marrow, and it has already been used with great success in the treatment of complicated fractures in seven patients at Ein Kerems Hadassah University Hospital, Jerusalem. It was developed by Doctors and their research teams at the Hebrew University Faculty of Dental Medicine and is revolutionary, as previous standard treatments for extreme bone loss involved one of two courses: amputation, or a prolonged period of disability. Also, the use of prosthetics in such cases appears to result in general long-term failure.

Previously, the use of Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) had been hailed as a potential breakthrough in biological therapy for the use of treating complicated fractures and other skeletal disorders. Such cells can, post-isolation, be used to repair a multitude of injured tissues including tendons, bones, cartilage and, amazingly, even the heart muscle. Conventional methods of MSC isolation had, however, been demonstrated to be costly and painstaking due to the necessarily prolonged periods of growth in incubators. Such procedures were also though to be potentially harmful to the therapeutic value of the cells post-incubation. Because of this, an alternative method was a previously unfilled vacuum in the field of regenerative medicine.

Consequently the team at the Hebrew University appear to have filled this vacuum with their recently-developed technology called immuno-isolation. In immuno isolation, MSC are isolated and separated from other the other cells in the bone marrow sample by using a specific antibody. Tests showed that the immuno-isolated cells could, when implanted in laboratory animals, form new bone tissue without the need to spend a prolonged period in incubation in order to grow as previously. It is this very technology and treatment that resulted in the successful recovery of the previously mentioned seven patients. The patients were all treated using a combination of their own immuno-isolated MSCs along with blood products. From start to finish, the procedure took only a few hours, compared to previously where cells would need to have been grown in a laboratory, which would in itself take several weeks.

It is thought that future developments of the technique and technology will extend it to the treatment of other skeletal injuries, very possibly resulting in renewed hope, functionality, mobility and quality of life for patients afflicted by skeletal fractures and diseases.