A man who had shoulder pain turned to stem cells to aid his recovery from rotator cuff surgery, according to a Nov. 11 report from ABC12.
The man participated in a trial using stem cells that were injected during surgery after his right shoulder sidelined him from his hobbies, the report said. Follow-up MRIs looked at the recovery.
Three days after surgery, the man didn't need pain medicine, and he felt recovered after a few weeks, the report said. When his other shoulder gave out, he opted for stem cells again.
"Even though we repair the tendon [during surgery], we stitch it back into place, about 20 percent of the time it may not heal," Nikhil Verma, MD, director of sports medicine at Midwest Orthopedics at Rush, told ABC12. "In the group that got the stem cells, we could see a marked improvement in the appearance of the tendon compared to the group that did not get the stem cells."
Read the full report and watch the video here.