A Cincinnati pain management physician led the first prospective controlled trial in the world on treating chronic back pain with stem cells, with about 70 percent of participants seeing positive results.
Sairam Atluri, MD, led the trial on using bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells for chronic pain, according to a June 15 news release. The trial looked at 40 patients who received stem cell treatment and 40 who were in a control group. They were followed for a year after treatment.
Almost 70 percent of those who received stem cell treatment had significant pain relief and improved physical and mental function. All of them cut down or eliminated their pain medication. Eight percent of those in the control group reported improved functioning. The results were published in the March/April issue of Pain Physician Journal.
"These results of this treatment are astonishing and now, irrefutable," Dr. Atluri said in the release. "I travel around the world educating and teaching other physicians about BM-MSCs, and now I can do it with scientific proof in hand…. It's changing people's lives, and in many cases, giving them a future to look forward to for the first time in years."