The orthopaedics department at UMC Utrecht has developed the world’s first one-step repair operation for damaged knee cartilage. This new procedure involves removing cartilage cells surgically from the damaged knee and mixing them with specially selected donor stem cells.
This cell mixture is then applied to the damaged area in the knee during the same operation. The advantage for the patient is that only one procedure is required instead of the usual two operations at an interval of three months. It is suggested that the surgical technique could cut treatment time, while costs would be dramatically reduced.
The new procedure is called ‘Instant MSC Product accompanying Autologous Chondron Transplantation’ (IMPACT) and is the result of research conducted as part of UMC Utrecht’s regenerative medicine and stem cell research.
Orthopaedic surgeon, Professor Daniël Saris, UMC Utrecht, explained: “We calculate that we can save about €2 million for every 100 patients because our method costs approximately 75% less than the current autologous cartilage implantation. Taking the indirect costs (i.e. those related to sick leave) into account, cost savings will be even higher.
"The first few patients have already undergone this operation. If the safety and effectiveness of this new method is confirmed in the ongoing clinical study, this could have an enormous impact on the cost-effectiveness of these types of treatments.”
