Cell Therapy to Obtain Spinal Fusion
Abstract
Surgery of the spine to fuse the vertebral bones is one of the most commonly performed operations with an estimated 400,000 Americans to undergo this surgery in the year 2003. It is useful for the treatment of scoliosis, instability and painful degenerative conditions of the spine, but as currently performed is highly invasive and has a low success rate. Often bone must be surgically removed from the pelvis, to implant in the spine for proper healing, which requires an additional surgery. This additional surgery often results in significant pain, and long term healing. We propose to develop a system in which cells carrying an adenovirus making a bone forming protein would be injected through the skin into the location near the spine which requires fusion. The cells used for this experiment could be those isolated from the patients own blood, and would not require any invasive surgical procedures. The first steps to creating such a procedure is to test this type of system in animals and determine the optimal conditions necessary to achieve spine fusion. Validation of our hypothesis will provide a safe and efficacious gene therapy system for the production of bone by providing a cellular delivery system for the bone forming protein and localization of the cells to the spine, circumventing the need for direct administration of the viruses that could have potential systemic side effects.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA448465
Entities
People
- Elizabeth A. Olmstead-davis
Organizations
- Baylor College of Medicine