Regenerative medicine company Orthocell (ASX: OCC) has announced positive results from a study of its tendon cell treatment for tennis elbow in 25 workers’ compensation patients.
The retrospective study was a collaboration between the University of Western Australia and leading orthopaedic surgeons Dr Alex O’Beirne from Perth and Dr Jeff Hughes from Sydney.
The data shows Orthocell’s autologous tenocyte injection treatment, Ortho-ATITM,
significantly improved the clinical outcome of patients with long term tennis elbow
degeneration, showing reduced pain and increased functionality enabling patients to return to work.
A significant 88 per cent of patients were able to return to work and more than 50 per cent of these returned at full capacity following ATI treatment.
Assessments carried out by the treating surgeons 3-6 months following ATI treatment showed there was a reduction in pain by almost 90 per cent at rest and 54 per cent with usage of the affected limb.
Most of the patients returned to work within 1-3 months, with a gradual increase in
productivity to pre-injury levels (5.33 months).
“These are very positive outcomes in a group of patients that did not respond to other
treatments, with injuries that inhibited their ability to remain in the workplace,” said Dr O’Beirne.
According to Dr Hughes, “These are difficult to treat patients who are impeded in their ability to work and to carry out their essential duties. Ortho-ATITM has been instrumental in helping my patients to recover from long term tennis elbow injuries which have proved resistant to other modes of therapy.”
Patients described persistence of symptoms for an average of 22 months prior to treatment with Ortho-AT. Patients had failed to respond to alternative treatments including steroid injection(s) (60 per cent), autologous blood and platelet rich plasma injection(s) (28 per cent), physiotherapy (56 per cent), bracing (32 per cent), acupuncture and other (32%), or treatments with anti-inflammatories (12 per cent).
Patients had received at least one and as many as eight prior treatments (average of 2.52).
Orthocell CEO Paul Anderson said the data demonstrated that Ortho-ATITM can help people with a difficult to treat tendon injury.
“This type of injury can hinder a person’s ability to work and lead to individual hardship, as well as significant socio-economic costs from the loss of individual productivity and health care costs,” he said.
