A tissue engineering method for preventing narrowing of the intervertebral disc
For seventy years, disc herniations have been treated by surgical removal of the damaged disc. After the first successful operations increased mobility of the operated segment has been detected. Different immobilization techniques have been employed in order to fix the hypermobile segments, however they proved to be inappropriate because they caused increased mobility of neighbouring segments. Artificial protheses have been constructed in attempts to prevent the narrowing of intervertebral space, but instability and migration of such implants into the bone of vertebral corpus have been reported.
Our goal is to develop a functional biological replacement for the nucleus pulposus of the intervertebral disc which would prevent narrowing of the intervertebral space.
The method has been tested on an animal model. In vitro cultivated auricular chondrocytes have been transferred to the intervertebral space in the lumbal part of a rabbit’s spine. The results are proving the potential of transplanted cells for damaged tissue regeneration.
We have recently started to participate in the GENODISC project, which is part of the EU Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).