Relieve back ache with 'living' disc implants

Time for a posture check! Slumped and achy?

Well each year, up to 60% of Americans suffer from chronic back or neck pain.

Now, Cornell researchers have created a spinal implant out of biomaterials… sheep cells, collagen, and hydrogels. And they’ve already helped restore mechanical function to rat spines.

The pain is mostly caused by damage to cartilaginous discs, the cushions in our spine. Surgery helps, but many of those implants become loose or fail because of general wear. Nor do the patients feel the same as they did before surgery – limiting mobility, cutting down active lifestyles, and ending athletic careers.

So what Cornell’s Lawrence Bonassar and team did was to engineer discs that have the same structural components and behave just like real discs.

The team grew the biological discs from sheep spinal cells in the lab: a gelatinous core surrounded by collagen. (Pictured: normal disc on left, bioengineered disc on right.)

1. The researchers added living cells taken from rat spines onto the discs, which acted like scaffolds.
2. Those were implanted into the spines of rats who had discs removed from under their tails. MRI and CT scans verified that the implants fit properly.
3. Half a year later, the discs maintained the correct height, grew new cells, and integrated into the spine.
4. Various mechanical properties of the implants were tested, such as response to compression. These were were similar to normal discs.

This is the first indication that this type of tissue can be made outside the body and placed back in with some level of function. "Not only are the cells making new tissue, but they're integrating into the surrounding tissue," Bonassar says. "We actually saw collagen fibers run between the new disc and neighboring vertebrae."

People with degenerative disc disease, or herniated discs, often get a discectomy to remove their spinal discs. A 2005 FDA-approved procedure replaced discs with an implant made of metal and plastic – but structures move around and debris particles end up accumulating in the body.

As cushions, these implants seem to get better as they mature in the body, because of the growth of the cells and their integration into the surrounding tissue.

Next up, crafting personalized discs out of human patients’ own cells.

The study was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Image: Robby D. Bowles et al.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com