What is Regenerative Medicine?
Regenerative medicine is a specialized field of science and healthcare that seeks to either replace or restore cells, tissues, and organs that have been damaged. Some of the reasons why these tissues might be damaged are an injury, trauma, accidents, and even congenital diseases. The vast majority of medical fields seek to treat someone’s symptoms while the body itself heals the underlying illness or injury. Unfortunately, treating the symptoms often leaves someone with residual complications that might inhibit their quality of life down the road. Regenerative medicine seeks to avoid this problem, alleviating both the symptoms and the root cause.
This field of medicine has a variety of tools that have the potential to help countless people all over the world. Sometimes, individuals who suffer a catastrophic injury might be left with residual problems. This field has the potential to change all of this, providing help for people all over the world.
Numerous Subsets of this Field
There are several subsets of this field that have all contributed new treatments and therapies for patients. Some of these include:
Tissue Engineering: Tissue engineering is a field where researchers are developing scaffolds that are compatible with the human body. These scaffolds are designed to provide a foundation around which new issues can grow. The scaffold is meant to help tissues grow in the proper shape. In the future, tissue engineering will be used to grow entirely new sheets of cells where scar tissue might have formed in the past.
Organ Replacement: Currently, if someone has an organ that fails, the primary treatment option is a transplant. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of organs that can be transplanted, contributing to long waitlists. In the future, regenerative medicine will be able to provide artificial organs that are compatible with the patient’s immune system, minimizing rejection.
Current Treatment Options
There are a couple of treatment options in this field that patients have already found helpful. Some of these include:
Stem Cell Therapy: Stem cell therapy can already help patients recover from an injury. Studies have already shown that stem cells can be injected at the location of damaged tissue following an injury. Then, reconstruction and regeneration can occur. These cells can be taken from the patient’s blood, fat, and bone marrow.
Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy: Often abbreviated PRP, this is another popular treatment option in the field of regenerative medicine. The body’s plasma has tremendous healing potential. Therefore, plasma can be extracted from the patient’s blood. Then, this fluid can be injected into the site of an injury, speeding the recovery process.
Future Direction in Regenerative Medicine
Clearly, regenerative medicine has a tremendous amount of promise. The doctors and scientists who work in this field are hoping to restore both structure and function to damaged cells, tissues, and organs. Furthermore, researchers are also looking for ways to provide solutions to organs that might have otherwise been permanently damaged. In this sense, this field of medicine can provide an approach to treat traumatic injuries that previously had no answer. Therefore, this field is providing hope to families who previously might not have had any. It will be exciting to watch this field continue to grow and develop.
Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyers
I’m Ed Smith, a Sacramento Personal Injury Lawyer. Regenerative medicine is a specialized field that focuses on the regeneration of cells and tissues. If you are having problems following an injury due to the negligence of another person or entity, please reach out to me at (800) 404-5400 and/or (916) 921-6400 to receive free, friendly legal guidance and advice.
I’m honored to be an attorney of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum as well as the Top One Percent. We are an esteemed National Association of Distinguished Counsel. Individuals who have become a part of our group have worked hard for verdicts & have negotiated for settlements valued in excess of $1 million.
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