Two years ago when I read about platelet-rich plasma therapy I was excited about the possibility of trying that for my soar knee that, due to many sport injuries, is suffering from osteoarthritis and extensive cartilage loss. It had become so bad that it was painful to walk, and at my young age it was hard to deal with the daily pain. Quite interesting I read that with a handful of stem cells it is possible to heal arthritis, get rid of the pain and almost feel like you have a brand new knee. The therapy is an outpatient procedure where blood is drawn from the bone marrow under local anesthesia. The blood is then immediately centrifuged so that the stem cells get separated from the rest of the blood. You get a blood derivative (MSC) that is injected into the joint cavity as a common infiltration. That is enough to activate the stem cells which are transformed in 20-30 days into cartilage cells and are able to repair the joint.

“The results,” assures Professor Ferdinando Priano, famous Orthopedic surgeon who teaches at the University of Genoa, and former president of the Italian Society of Arthroscopy, “are amazing. In 90-95% of cases, the pain decreases and improves joint mobility. There are no problems of rejection or adverse reactions. In reality,” explains Professor Priano, “the use of stem cells taken from the bone marrow has been around for thirty years. If it is used to accelerate the healing of fractures that are struggling to heal or to fill in loss of bone, or in the course of certain replacements of prosthetic joints. But it is only a few of years we are employing these cells to repair cartilage defects.” Basically the stem cells are like baby cells and not fully developed yet. As they grow they are able to multiply and transform in any kind of tissue. This will essentially facilitate the repair of the damaged bone or tissue in the body. Quite fascinating!!

When I read the article above I immediately went to visit Prof. Priano in Genova and when he looked at my knee I was told the bad news. “Your leg is not straight so even if we apply this therapy your knee is not likely to get any benefit from it.”. He suggested I had an Osteotomy to straighten the leg so that the body weight is off the damaged knee area and shifted to the other side of the knee, where the cartilage is still healthy. I have talked about this procedure in this post. So I decided to follow his advice and that’s why on December 2011 I was in Italy to undergo the Osteotomy performed by Prof. Priano.

Few months after the surgery the pain started to improve and I could finally walk with less pain. Although the situation was significantly better, recently I still had some discomfort. I knew I had to try the platelet-rich plasma therapy but I wasn’t too keen on undergoing another surgery. Finally last month I decided to gather all my courage and try. I was comforted by reading this article and find out that this therapy is now very popular among athletes with similar conditions.

I arrived in Italy during last weekend and Tuesday morning I was on my way to the city of Rapallo. There I checked into the private clinic Villa Azzurra, ready to undergo surgery number 9. The clinic is small but extremely nice, surrounded by a beautiful garden, sitting on the hills of the Italian riviera, not far from the sea. The very welcoming and serene atmosphere put me immediately at ease. The staff was very nice and courteous. I had to wait a few hours for my turn but finally at 3:30pm the nurse came to take me down to the operating room. “Here’s the Chinese guy” said Prof. Priano smiling at me. I was reassured to see him there. The procedure was quick, at first the blood was drawn from my arms and that was a little painful as they had to use long needles to go deep, near the bone marrow. I only had local anesthesia on the knee and Prof. Priano first cleaned the debris from the joint with a quick arthroscopy as the blood was centrifuged. Then he injected the blood derivative containing the stems cells into my knee.  The whole procedure all took about 20 minutes. Two hours later Prof. Priano came to room and said that I could walk on my own and return home. As he left I expressed my gratitude to him. “Thank you professor!”.

It’s too early to say what the outcome is going to be but 3 days after the procedure my knee feel much better already and I can walk around normally without problems, it’s just a little swollen. Overall I am amazed of how simple the procedure was and how I quickly I was able to be back on my feet.

Let’s hope for the best!