Cranial Cruciate Ligament

I read with interest a Veterinarians review of all the treatments for Cranial Cruciate injury repair that are available on the market. It was very thorough and a fair assessment of each type of treatment and its strengths and weaknesses.

The most popular surgeries are the TPLO, the TTA and the Tight Rope external augmentation. There are also many Doctors performing external augmentation surgeries using suture or fascia lata. All have the ability to address the problem of a ruptured or torn cranial cruciate ligament.

Our news, not yet published, is that there are two doctors  using ACell Vet to repair the CCL. One uses a twisted fascia lata graft injected with a suspension of Acell Vet in saline in an anatomic repair and the other uses a multi-layer custom device of ACell Vet, also anatomically. Both Drs. have done over 100 cases with excellent results. They are getting large working dogs back to their jobs. (Hunting, etc)

The exciting thing is that after histological analysis at over 13 months, there doesn't appear to be progression of osteoarthritis. True these are early findings and more work needs to be done to document the results, but ....isn't it exciting that there may be another option besides cutting the bone and rearranging the geometry of the joint?

You can view a video of this procedure on the ACell Vet website at www.acellvet.com  / Orthopedics / CCL / Video.

Helping Dogs with Osteoarthritis

Greetings from ACell!

As I get started with this blog I am reminded that many people have not heard of ACell or extracellular matrix or even regenerative medicine, but that will be the purpose of this blog; to inform, to educate and to listen to your feedback. We can help dogs that are being considered for euthanasia.

Starting at the beginning when Jim D and I first learned of the research being conducted by Steve Badylak, DVM, PhD, MD and Alan Spievack, MD, we knew that we had found something of great value. Their research with extracellular matrices was showing great promise in the lab. It was Dr. Spievack who was focused on the basement membrane and hence the discovery of UBM. (Urinary bladder matrix). Since then, over 10 years ago now, many scientific papers have been published studying various applications of this technology and its basic science. More recently the technology has been introduced to the marketplace and is being used daily in human medicine and in Veterinary medicine for a wide variety of applications.

Extracellular matrix is present in all species. It is the soup that cells live in. It is comprised of different types of collagens, growth factors, glycosaminoglycans, glycoproteins and many other beneficial components that support healthy cellular growth and helps direct the cellular level information highway. It is not hard to understand then, that when this material, void of cells, is put into the body, that the body knows what to do with it. It contains the information to stimulate angiogenesis (new blood vessel formation) which leads to recruitment of new cells, even stem cells, which can populate the 3 dimensional scaffold and with the appropriate stressors, make new site specific tissue.

Simplifying all this, UBM has the ability to help heal deficient tissues or damaged tissue.

So why would I pick Osteoarthritis in dogs to start the discussion? The answer is simple if you have watched severely arthritic dogs try to go about the daily business of being a dog. This product in its powdered form is mixed with saline and injected into arthritic hips. The first few days after the injection will be no better, but then most dogs improve dramatically and the improvement may last for six months or longer. You can actually view the procedure on our website at www.acellvet.com. 

We don't have all the answers scientifically why this works, but for severely arthritic dogs isn't worth a try?

I look forward to your comments.....