7-15-14
http://www.medpagetoday.com/SportsMedicine/GeneralSportsMedicine/46776
Argentinian midfielder Angel Di Maria's hamstring injury prevented him from playing in the World Cup final against Germany on Sunday, but his manager said he had been going for stem cell treatments in hopes of accelerating healing and getting in on the action.
Despite the longstanding controversy over stem cell therapies for athletes, sports journalists gave little context on Di Maria's use of stem cells, passing it off as if it were an accepted therapy in sports medicine.
Orthopedists and other experts say there's little evidence that stem cells have any efficacy in sports injuries -- particularly for Di Maria's type of injury.
"There are very little rigorous data to support the use of bone marrow aspirate injections for treatment of tendon injury," Scott Rodeo, MD, a sports medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, told MedPage Today. "There are isolated case reports, but very little well-done rigorous data."
Rodeo said a major roadblock for stem cell therapy in tendon injury is that the number of true stem cells in a bone marrow aspirate is very small.
"It is somewhat of a stretch to even use the term 'stem cell' for these clinical injections," Rodeo said. "Most feel that it is more accurate to use the term 'connective tissue progenitor cell,' which implies cells that have some ability to regenerate tissue, but which lack the criteria that define a true stem cell."
The most effective way to use these therapies will be to isolate and concentrate these specific cells from bone marrow, Rodeo said, but that's a ways off because the FDA does not yet allow manipulation of the bone marrow sample.
It's not only the media who are to blame when it comes to the lack of context on stem cell therapies. Some physicians have been forging ahead with these expensive treatments -- especially for clients who can afford them.
One press release paraphrased "Dr. Raj," an orthopedic surgeon in private practice in Beverly Hills, as saying that stem cells are the "wave of the future."
"The stem cells or 'healthy cells' are extremely effective at regenerating cells, repairing muscle tissue, and reducing inflammation," Dr. Raj says in the release.
And Di Maria is far from alone in his willingness to experiment. Among other examples, New York Yankee pitcher Bartolo Colon has had stem cell treatment for a chronic shoulder injury, and Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning received a shot of stem cells in hopes of fixing a neck injury.
An article in the Nature journal Molecular Therapy aptly captures the problem with athletes and sports media accepting stem cell therapies as a proven treatment: "It can help create the impression that these are efficacious treatments that, for a number of reasons, are available only to those with the resources to access them."
These articles and endorsements "serve to create a narrative that can be used by clinics to market unproven treatments," the authors write, concluding that the medical and scientific communities "need to provide a clear and consistent message ... about the actual, nascent state of stem cell research."
HypeWatch is a blog by MedPage Today staff that tracks media coverage of medical research. This post came from Kristina Fiore.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/SportsMedicine/GeneralSportsMedicine/46776
Argentinian midfielder Angel Di Maria's hamstring injury prevented him from playing in the World Cup final against Germany on Sunday, but his manager said he had been going for stem cell treatments in hopes of accelerating healing and getting in on the action.
Despite the longstanding controversy over stem cell therapies for athletes, sports journalists gave little context on Di Maria's use of stem cells, passing it off as if it were an accepted therapy in sports medicine.
Orthopedists and other experts say there's little evidence that stem cells have any efficacy in sports injuries -- particularly for Di Maria's type of injury.
"There are very little rigorous data to support the use of bone marrow aspirate injections for treatment of tendon injury," Scott Rodeo, MD, a sports medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, told MedPage Today. "There are isolated case reports, but very little well-done rigorous data."
Rodeo said a major roadblock for stem cell therapy in tendon injury is that the number of true stem cells in a bone marrow aspirate is very small.
"It is somewhat of a stretch to even use the term 'stem cell' for these clinical injections," Rodeo said. "Most feel that it is more accurate to use the term 'connective tissue progenitor cell,' which implies cells that have some ability to regenerate tissue, but which lack the criteria that define a true stem cell."
The most effective way to use these therapies will be to isolate and concentrate these specific cells from bone marrow, Rodeo said, but that's a ways off because the FDA does not yet allow manipulation of the bone marrow sample.
It's not only the media who are to blame when it comes to the lack of context on stem cell therapies. Some physicians have been forging ahead with these expensive treatments -- especially for clients who can afford them.
One press release paraphrased "Dr. Raj," an orthopedic surgeon in private practice in Beverly Hills, as saying that stem cells are the "wave of the future."
"The stem cells or 'healthy cells' are extremely effective at regenerating cells, repairing muscle tissue, and reducing inflammation," Dr. Raj says in the release.
And Di Maria is far from alone in his willingness to experiment. Among other examples, New York Yankee pitcher Bartolo Colon has had stem cell treatment for a chronic shoulder injury, and Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning received a shot of stem cells in hopes of fixing a neck injury.
An article in the Nature journal Molecular Therapy aptly captures the problem with athletes and sports media accepting stem cell therapies as a proven treatment: "It can help create the impression that these are efficacious treatments that, for a number of reasons, are available only to those with the resources to access them."
These articles and endorsements "serve to create a narrative that can be used by clinics to market unproven treatments," the authors write, concluding that the medical and scientific communities "need to provide a clear and consistent message ... about the actual, nascent state of stem cell research."
HypeWatch is a blog by MedPage Today staff that tracks media coverage of medical research. This post came from Kristina Fiore.