Sports Medicine Miracles?

April 16, 2007— -- Designer "spare parts" for ruptured tendons and torn ligaments. Stem cell injections to heal and build muscle. Medical therapeutics that would allow star athletes to extend their careers by years, if not decades.

Welcome to what some envision as the new world of sports therapeutics. Proponents say that such regenerative treatments could be on the way in the years to come.

Clinical trials investigating stem cells' potential in regenerating cartilage and healing muscle are currently under way. And already, some companies that freeze and store certain types of stem cells are promoting the potential of stem cell therapies for sports medicine. The idea is that stem cells stored now may be useful years down the road.

But other stem cell and regenerative medicine experts say today's sports stars shouldn't call their agents yet because much more research needs to be done before such treatments even approach reality.

Research on stem cells -- those cells in the body that can be nudged to develop into a wide variety of different tissues -- has actually been going on since the early 1960s.

However, recent advancements have brought the type of optimism that, some argue, hasn't been seen in scientific realms since the beginning of the atomic age.

The regenerative stem cell therapies that may one day help athletes heal mostly fall outside the debate over research on embryonic stem cells; in most cases, the cells used in sports medicine would come from other sources, such as umbilical cord blood or even the patients themselves.

Initial steps in stem cell therapy for athletes could be modest.

"The most likely short-term applications of stem cells would seem to be the enhancement of the healing response after injury and or surgery," said Dr. Rick Matsen, chair of orthopedics and sports medicine at the University of Washington.

As an example, he said that stem cells may one day be used to help torn rotator cuffs heal more quickly. Stem cells may also be used to prompt quicker healing of stress fractures and muscle strains.