Osteoarthritis as we know is a degenerative disease of the joint. It is more common in people older than 40 years. Women are more likely to be affected. Osteoarthritis of the knee is considered a "wear and tear" process, where there is gradual degradation of the hyaline cartilage that covers the articulating surfaces of the bones in the joint.
In most people, the disease is either post-traumatic or hereditary. Other causes includes trauma, obesity, presence of other forms of arthritis, recurrent fractures or dislocation, weak muscles ,congenital deformities, ligament instability.
The treatment of osteoarthritis is basically to limited to pain killers, weight reduction, physiotherapy and lastly surgical intervention. Use of stem cells and protein rich plasma has opened a new avenue altogether for the treatment of osteoarthritis.
Avascular necrosis is a disease where there is cellular death of bone components due to interruption of the blood supply. Without blood, the bone tissue dies and the bone collapses. If avascular necrosis involves the bones of a joint, it often leads to destruction of the joint articular surfaces.
There are many theories about what causes avascular necrosis like chemotherapy, alcoholism, post trauma, damage from radiation, rheumatoid arthritis and some anemias.
Avascular necrosis primarily affects the joints at the shoulder, hip and knee. The classical sites are head of femur, neck of talus and waist of scaphoid.
Avascular necrosis usually affects people between 30 and 50 years of age.
The treatment of avascular necrosis is largely limited to surgical intervention. However, Mesenchymal stem cells and Platelet rich plasma has shown promising results which will reduce the requirement of surgical intervention for the treatment.
The patent application number: 2253/MUM/2014.