Corey W Hunter - Regenerative Medicine: A Complete Guide for Musculoskeletal and Spine Disorders

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Regenerate (regenerate; ri-je-n-rt): to generate or produce anew; to replace (a body part) by a new growth of tissue; to restore to original strength or properties.

The field of medicine has come a long way since the days of opium and willow tree bark. While eras of time are earmarked by diseases and illnesses that plagued the living of that period, they are equally remembered for the scientific breakthroughs they gave way to that allowed for our species to survive and persevere. Each discovery rendered treatments that allowed mankind to treat the untreatable. Fortunately, the minds of luminaries never grew content, ever searching for the next cure or an advancement that would allow us to continue to push the boundaries of what was possible. But for each problem that was solved, another obstacle was revealed; the obstacle of our time has been finding the means to make the body fix itself.

The human body is a resilient machine that can repair itself after withstanding impressive amounts of damage, yet there are certain instances where it cannot, relegating it to an impasse that it will never cross. For as far as we have progressed, we still have no way to make the brain regenerate lost tissue, repair a damaged spinal cord in quadriplegic, regrow lost cartilage in an arthritic joint, or even repair a degenerative disc in the spine. For these and many other conditions where damage appears to be irreversible, we have turned to the idea of regenerative medicine in an attempt to trick the body into regenerating itself and repairing the injury.

Regenerative medicine has gone by many names over the years: biologics, stem cell therapy, embryonic stem cells, platelet rich plasma, prolotherapy, amnioticwhatever the name or label, many view the field like to be the holy grail or even the final frontier of medicine due to the seemingly endless possibilities for its utility. Whether it be repairing the nigrostriatal pathway of the brain in a person with Parkinsons, regrowing lost islet cells in the pancreas of a person with diabetes, repairing retinal damage in an eye, or simply treating pain in a damaged tendon, regenerative medicine may very well hold the key to helping mankind move beyond the obstacles of our era.

As the field has grown, so has its use in everyday practice particularly in the specialties of pain and orthopedics. Despite the groundswell in its popularity, a lack of adherence to evidence-based medicine and essential standards has developed, for which it is utilized in basic practice. Contrary to virtually every other therapy and/or medical treatment currently being utilized, regenerative medicine is not part of an educational curriculum within any field or specialty within medicine; rather it is relegated to word of mouth or weekend courses whereby one medical professional will merely share their personal experiences for a price to others that wish to bring these methods into their own practices. Often, there is little regard for evidence or best practices within these educational offerings, simply ways to maximize profits. Consequently, the belief that regenerative therapies are pixie dust or some form of magical treatment that can cure all ailments has developed which has created a schism between reality and marketing fiction.

Regenerative medicine is impressive and revolutionary by its right, without any need for embellishment or exaggeration if it is ever to reach its full potential, it will need to stand on its own merit with real data and factual evidence as the foundation. The purpose of this book was to bring together the worlds experts in regenerative medicine and consolidate that evidence into a first-of-its kind resource that will give future practitioners an evidence-based resource on how to best implement this therapy in the real world.

It is our hope that this book will be a beacon of light for the field that highlights not only the importance of data but the continual need for even more, as well as becoming call-to-action that will drive others to build upon what we present here by publishing similar works predicated on real data. As time moves on, and the future becomes the past, we endeavor to make this offering a living document that will be continually updated as more data enters the fold and future therapies come into play.