Lumber pain is the second highest cause of work absence through sickness and is responsible for the annual loss of 700,000 working days according to statistics supplied by the General Office of Investigation and innovation of the European Commission.
The team of neurologists of the IMED hospitals, headed by Dr. Jose Navarro Moncho, have performed the first operation in the province that uses stem cells in order to treat chronic back pain. The operation has been carried out successfully and it is expected that the patient will make a full recovery.
This innovative procedure was performed in just 45 minutes and consisted of injecting stem cells and enriched stem cells into the damaged spinal column. This combination of substances arrest the degeneration of the disc and activates its regeneration reducing the damage to the nerves that are found around the disc and which cause lumbar pain. Both the stem cells and the rich plasma factors of growth are extracted from the actual patient during the operation.
The stem cells are obtained from the bone marrow extracted from the pelvis and the enriched plasma is obtained from the blood.
Both substances are processed in the same operating theatre. Both the procedure of cellular procurement and the actual application are performed in the operating theatre under light sedation and local anaesthesia. In principle it isn't necessary to hospitalize the patient.
The treatment with growth factors and stem cells have been extended in the last few years to different medical specialities from ophthalmology to odontology, traumatology or in this case neurological treatment of back injuries. The clinical results which have been obtained in other centres employing this treatment have demonstrated the same effectiveness.
As highlighted by Dr. Navarro 'until now, the treatment for patients who show a presence of degeneration of the intervertebral disc in initial stages consisted of burning the surrounding nerve, which was causing the typical back pain.
This solution was to attack the symptom, but not to solve the underlying problem. With the application of stem cells directly into the disc we manage to solve the main cause of the problem, a damaged or black disc and also resolve the pain issue in a much more positive way for the health of the patient.'
Concerning the benefits obtained by this technique, Dr.Navarro commented that 'comparing the results with the surgical solutions that we have been employing, it is confirmed that it offers very similar effectiveness in terms of disappearance of pain with the advantage that it isn't an invasive operation and besides that it doesn't impede the carrying out of any other type of future operation if the initial result isn't what was hoped for.
Back pain is one of the most common health problems in the adult population. It is estimated that approximately 75% of the population will suffer back pain at some time in their life and that approximately 10% of those cases will be chronic. According to statistics from the European Commission, 67 million working days have been lost because of back problems.
