Newsletter | July 2018

Dr. Steven Neufeld of the Centers for Advanced Orthopedics (CAO) in Falls Church, Virginia USA, renowned and accomplished Foot & Ankle Specialist, has been kind enough to put together a couple of very nice “Case Reports” on his experience with Marrow Cellution in Arthritis.

As you will discover from the following case reports, Dr. Neufeld uses the Marrow Cellution (MC-RAN-8C) to collect high quality bone marrow as well as bone core dowels from the same site to facilitate and augment his autograft requirements.

As the Marrow Cellution System is confined to the sterile field, it does not have to be passed out of the sterile environment, reducing the risk of contamination significantly.  Additionally, when using a “point of care” centrifuge system to process bone marrow, there are other concerns that have to be taken into consideration.

The typical sequence of activity usually first involves the collection of the bone marrow, as it has to be processed outside of the sterile field and then returned in a heparinized state to prevent clotting until the biologic is needed, which is typically the last step in the surgical process.  This can cause some logistical issues as the actual intended surgical procedure will not have been initiated, thereby making it impossible to determine if any cancellous bone graft may be required. Many times the surgeon is forced to leave the aspiration site open for secondary access to collect bone graft at a later time.  Marrow Cellution provides an “off the shelf” solution to this problem.  Marrow Cellution allows the surgeon to conduct the surgical procedure in a natural sequence.  Both the intended surgical site and the marrow aspiration site can be easily prepared depending on the anatomical surgical access desired (does not require any repositioning of the patient).  Once the surgeon has had the opportunity to determine the autograft demand (liquid as well as solid), the surgeon can simply briefly move to the sterilely prepared iliac crest, collect the high quality fresh marrow and cancellous bone cores required for the surgery, then transplant them within seconds.

This advantage mitigates the need for over heparinization providing a much “stickier” quality sought in grafting procedures.  As the sequence of events is now reversed and logically follows the natural flow of the surgical procedure, there is no need to open the Marrow Cellution package until it is needed.  If the surgeon determines to change the direction of the intervention, no longer requiring the biologic, the Marrow Cellution can be reserved, alleviating the patient from unnecessary procedures and costs.