MOUNTAIN CLIMBER’S OWN STEM CELLS SAVE HIS ANKLE FOR POSSIBLE TENTH CLIMB OF MT. EVEREST
What is subjected to more weight and is injured more than any other joint in our body? Our ankles are. When an injury, sprain, or break does not heal right, the problem creeps up years later in the form of arthritis.
A new procedure using stem cells from the patient's own body is regenerating joints and giving people more mobility.
His resume includes conquering mount McKinley 40 times, Mount Kilimanjaro 20 times and Mount Everest nine times, and a broken ankle from 30 years ago created his biggest barrier yet.
He said, "It's getting to the point where I'm limping."
The cartilage in between his subtalar joint right below the ankle was gone.
Dr. S. Robert Rozbruch, Chief at Limb Lengthening and Complex Reconstruction Service Hospital for Special Surgery, said, "The conventional treatment for that is to fuse the subtalar joint which means make it stiff."
That is not an option for Vern, so doctors tried a new approach. Implant a fixator for three months that pulls apart the joint. Then, inject stem cells in the new four-millimeter space where cartilage will regenerate.
Dr. Rozbruch said, "We used stem cells derived from his pelvis."
Dr. Rozbruch has done 100 of these procedures on ankle joints. So far, 90 percent of patients are relieved of pain and do not need fusions.
He said, "Basically you see a reversal of arthritis."
You can see the difference between the ankle joint before the procedure, which has no space between the bones, and after...
"Look at the difference you can see a space, there's about three millimeters of cartilage compared to nothing," said Dr. Rozbruch.
"With this new technique I'll have a foot than can go 20, 30 years," said Vern.
Vern is a climbing king who was not going to let pain prevent him from his next adventure. This is the first time ever the procedure was done in the joint below the ankle.
Vern's next trip is an expedition across the South Pole in November.
Doctors say the cartilage continues to regenerate years after the procedure. If it does not work, patients can still have a fusion.