At Health Link Medical Center, our #1 priority is to produce the best possible outcomes for our patients. And while our patented protocol is far more complex than you will find at other regenerative medicine clinics, we do not cut corners. Everything about your Regenexx experience is designed for results.
Stem cells live in all of us and they act as the repairmen of the body. However, as we age or get injuries, we sometimes can’t get enough of these critical repair cells to the injured area. The Regenexx Procedures help solve this problem by greatly increasing your body’s own natural repair cells and promote healing. This is accomplished by harvesting cells from areas known to be rich in mesenchymal stem cells and then concentrating those cells in a lab before precisely reinjecting them into the damaged area in need of repair.
Our Same-Day Stem Cell Protocol is called a same-day procedure, because the stem cells are harvested and reinjected on the same day. However, for most patients the complete protocol is actually a series of injections that happen over the course of about a week, depending on your unique situation. These injections include a preinjection, the same-day stem cell extraction and reinjection procedure, followed by a post-injection of multiple proprietary platelet mixes a few days later.
On the day of your stem cell procedure, you will first have a blood draw from a vein in your arm. This will be processed in the lab along with your stem cell sample. When you are prepared for the first step of your stem cell procedure, your doctor will thoroughly numb the back of the hip and take a small bone marrow sample through a needle. The procedure we use is called a bone marrow aspirate. This is different than a bone marrow biopsy, which can be painful. The bone marrow aspiration process is often described by patients as being comfortable.
While your cells are being processed by a Regenexx Lab Technician, you will have some downtime to relax. A short period later, you will be ready for the second part of the procedure, where the doctor will reinject your stem cells and natural growth factors from your blood platelets using advanced imaging guidance into the area in need of repair (real time fluoroscopy or musculoskeletal ultrasound, using your MRI to plan the injection). This allows the doctor to pinpoint the exact location of the injection, as well as the dispersion of the cells into the tissues.
The goal is to deliver much greater numbers of stem cells to the injured area than your body can deliver on its own.
Regenexx spends heavily on innovation and we have a PhD led lab research team and a physician/bio stats led clinical research team to constantly update what we can offer. A couple of years ago we started various projects to determine if we could come up with a way of processing bone marrow that nobody had ever used. Seeking to double or even triple the number of stem cells extracted in a bone marrow aspiration, we exceeded our own expectations and increased it 500%+ over what we could do before.
Using our previous procedure, which was already superior to anything else, we could extract about 3-4 times the stem cells per cc over what the average automated centrifuge could do. This is important, because these little machines are used by 98% of the physicians performing bone marrow stem cell procedures. There is no real technical expertise required to use these machines. You just place the sample in the machine and push the “ON” button. Because of this and the fact that these machines are a one-size-fits-all solution to process very different bone marrow samples from very different patients, it wasn’t hard to outperform these devices. However, our research team investigated many different ways to process marrow. After discarding many, we finally discovered one that was pretty revolutionary. And while extracting more stem cells is a good thing, it doesn’t really make a difference if it doesn’t improve a patient’s procedure outcome.
Clinical data for knee arthritis patients from before and after making the switch to the newest generation of our patented same-day Regenexx procedure.
As you can see from this chart, there were dramatic, statistically significant changes in the LEFS functional scale (knee function) and pain relief with the new process when we compare many treated patients (average follow-up is 5 months). So not only are we getting more stem cells, but we’re now getting better results over a procedure that was already superior to anything else being offered.
All Regenexx network providers are offering this procedure and all have been trained in the process. This is our second generation same day stem cell procedure and we’re currently working on the third. We’re on our third generation platelet lysate (a mix of growth factors isolated from platelets) and working on our fourth. We’re on our second generation platelet rich plasma (Super Concentrated Platelets) and working on our third.
This innovation is something you’ll never see from small clinics offering stem cell procedures using inferior technology. At Regenexx, we’re focusing 100% on orthopedic stem cell and platelet procedures that produce the best possible outcomes for our patients.
The Regenexx Patented Stem Cell Protocol has been researched and continually improved for more than a decade. The protocol used in the United States typically involves a series of injections that take place over the course of approximately one week. The Stem Cell extraction and reinjection happens during the same day, while the other two injection steps happen before and after the same day stem cell procedure and are designed to enhance the results of the stem cell procedure.
We don’t treat everything and we’re proud of that fact. We are orthopedic specialists. Each doctor in the Regenexx Network is a musculoskeletal expert trained in our procedures and have proven skills in advanced injections for the body areas that they are certified to treat.
Regenexx® continually improves our processes to maximize the available stem cells for your treatment. Our patented multi-tier lab technique typically yields 10 to 20 times more stem cells than is possible using the simple automated equipment utilized by most stem cell clinics.
Regenexx® is the original orthopedic stem cell treatment in the United States and we’re responsible for a very large portion of the published orthopedic stem cell literature available today. View Published Research at Regenexx.com.
Research has shown that stem cells derived from bone marrow (rather than fat) are most effective for treating orthopedic injuries and conditions. We utilize advanced imaging guidance during the stem cell harvesting procedure to ensure the cells are being obtained from the exact area in the hip that is known to be rich in mesenchymal stem cells.
At Regenexx® we publish our patient outcome data on a regular basis and make it available to the public on our website and in peer-reviewed research papers. Regenexx patients are tracked in a registry for functional improvements, pain scales, outcomes and safety data.