Murray discovered that although the ligament itself was working hard to heal, the synovial fluid — the lubricating substance that exists inside of all joints — was washing away the blood clot that serves as the initial connection between torn tissue ends in other parts of the body. Finally, she knew what needed to be done. She had to find a bridge that would last in the joint long enough to allow the ACL ends to heal back together.
Picture courtesy of Boston Children’s Hospital
In 2008, Murray had developed such a bridge and was ready to run studies on pigs. She and Dr. Braden Fleming, an engineering professor at Brown University and Murray’s principal collaborator, published a study in 2013 proving that her creation worked. Called the Bridge-Enhanced ACL Repair (BEAR) scaffold, it was made of tissue from cows in New Zealand and could regrow ACLs in pigs. Interestingly, the pigs treated with the BEAR procedure also had significantly less arthritis than those treated with a standard graft reconstruction, another common problem associated with ACL injuries.
Next, Murray needed a successful study with humans. Despite very promising progress, she struggled to get funding from potential commercial partners. She was able to get initial funding from the Translational Research Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and given this innovation’s potential impact on NFL players, she was able to continue funding the clinical studies with grants from theNFL Players Association’s (NFLPA) Football Players Health Study at Harvard. Murray estimates that without the help of the NFLPA, these studies would have been delayed at least two years.
Three months after surgery in the first human trial, MRIs, flexibility tests and strength tests were completed on all 20 patients in the study. All 10 of the BEAR recipients had healing ACLs, flexibility close to that of their healthy knee and the operated legs of the BEAR recipients had recovered strength more quickly than the graft recipients. The Open Journal of Sports Medicine will publish this study in December.
http://theundefeated.com/features/new-acl-surgery-could-cut-rehab-and-recovery-time-in-half/
Picture courtesy of Boston Children’s Hospital
In 2008, Murray had developed such a bridge and was ready to run studies on pigs. She and Dr. Braden Fleming, an engineering professor at Brown University and Murray’s principal collaborator, published a study in 2013 proving that her creation worked. Called the Bridge-Enhanced ACL Repair (BEAR) scaffold, it was made of tissue from cows in New Zealand and could regrow ACLs in pigs. Interestingly, the pigs treated with the BEAR procedure also had significantly less arthritis than those treated with a standard graft reconstruction, another common problem associated with ACL injuries.
Next, Murray needed a successful study with humans. Despite very promising progress, she struggled to get funding from potential commercial partners. She was able to get initial funding from the Translational Research Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and given this innovation’s potential impact on NFL players, she was able to continue funding the clinical studies with grants from theNFL Players Association’s (NFLPA) Football Players Health Study at Harvard. Murray estimates that without the help of the NFLPA, these studies would have been delayed at least two years.
Three months after surgery in the first human trial, MRIs, flexibility tests and strength tests were completed on all 20 patients in the study. All 10 of the BEAR recipients had healing ACLs, flexibility close to that of their healthy knee and the operated legs of the BEAR recipients had recovered strength more quickly than the graft recipients. The Open Journal of Sports Medicine will publish this study in December.
http://theundefeated.com/features/new-acl-surgery-could-cut-rehab-and-recovery-time-in-half/
