The painful tennis elbow that has crippled the likes of Sachin Tendulkar for days restricting their hand movements for days together has finally found its cure. Tennis elbow, known as lateral epicondylitis in medical terms, is actually a degenerative condition caused due to the fraying of the tendon that joins the forearm muscle to that of the upper arm.
The possible reasons for the breaking of the tendon could be repeated overuse of the arm or lifting something heavy though the actual cause couldn’t be detected. The scientists weren’t able to determine a safe and effective cure for treating this condition until now, when a cure was finally found. The treatment designed uses the method of regenerating the tendon using the individual’s skin cells. The process begins with taking a 4mm skin from the hip of the individual of which the stem cells are isolated. These stem cells are capable of morphing into any form of tissue. Though the skin cells might not be able to regenerate organs as is the case with stem cord cells ,they are at least capable of generating new tendons or ligaments. These few cells are then cultures in the laboratory till they grow into about a million cells which take about six weeks. The cells are then injected into the tendon defects under ultrasound guidance. The process, which takes about 15 minutes, was tested on 12 people as a part of a pilot study of which 11 responded positively. The treatment is expected to bring about a radical change in curing the painful condition of tennis elbow and is expected to provide a major breakthrough in the research for the treatment of many similar conditions.
Via: Dailymail