Himchan Hospital "Stable and continuous confirmation of pain and function improvement effects after 1 year of intracranial injection of BMAC"

Nov 28, 2024

As a result of the follow-up observation of patients who received BMAC intra-articular injection procedures by Himchan Hospital's Arthroscopic Research Institute, it was confirmed that the effect lasted stably until a year after the procedure.

Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate (BMAC) intra-articular injection is a procedure recognized as a new medical technology by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in July last year, and is also called autologous bone marrow aspiration injection, autologous bone marrow concentrate injection, and autologous bone marrow cell injection. It has the effect of relieving pain and improving knee function by reducing the inflammatory response in the joints of patients with mid-term knee osteoarthritis.

The procedure is carried out by extracting bone marrow from the iliac ability of the patient's upper pelvis, separating it by centrifugation using a special kit, and injecting a bone marrow aspiration concentrate containing a large amount of cells into the patient's knee joint cavity.

A 12-month follow-up of patients who received BMAC intraarticular injections by an orthopedic research team at Himchan Hospital's Arthrogynecology Research Institute showed that the improvement effect was noticeably improved until three months after the procedure, and the effect lasted until 12 months after that.

The research team followed 100 patients (89, 62 women, and 27 men) with knee arthritis in the mid-term (2nd to 3rd phase) who underwent BMAC intra-articular injection from August to October 2023 for about 12 months. The median age was 63.0 years, of which 58 underwent BMAC intraarticular injection procedures on both knees.

As a result of the investigation, it was confirmed that the pain was noticeably reduced after treatment. The Visual Analog Scale (VAS), which represents the degree of pain, decreased significantly from 4.4 points before the procedure to 0.7 points after 3 months of the procedure, and continued to decline steadily to 0.4 points after 12 months.

KSS (Knee Society Score) and Knee and Function Score (Knee and Function Score), which evaluate pain and joint function, showed similar improvements. The knee joint score, which was an average of 85.4 points before the procedure, improved from 97.0 and 98.0 points after 3 and 12 months, respectively, and the knee function score improved from an average of 69.1 points before the procedure to 81.4 and 85.2 points, respectively. Overall, pain decreased by 90.1% after 12 months of the procedure, and knee joint scores and knee function scores improved by 14.8% and 23.3%, respectively.

Kim Tae-hyun, director of Himchan Hospital (Orthopedic Surgeon), said "BMAC intra-articular injections are not subject to arthroscopy or incision, so they are being widely applied to the treatment of knee arthritis in the middle of the year due to the low burden of the procedure. However, during treatment on the same day, bone marrow is drawn after local anesthesia, and since pain is often complained at this time, it is good to be hospitalized for about a day to control the pain and perform intravenous anesthesia (sleep). In addition, even minor, potential complications or side effects can occur, so it is important to plan treatment through consultation with a specialist with extensive clinical experience."