A group of Japanese researchers announced they have begun a clinical trial of a medical material derived from cow tendons to be used in people who need to have the anterior cruciate ligaments (ACLs) in their knees reconstructed.
An ACL injury, in which one of the ligaments that stabilize the knee joint is torn or sprained, is a common sports injury. The ligament is torn most often during sports that involve sudden jumps and turns, such as basketball, soccer and baseball.
The researchers ¡ª led by Kiyotaka Iwasaki, a professor at Waseda University, as well as others from Tokyo Women¡¯s Medical University ¡ª have confirmed the safety of the material derived from cow tendons in surgeries on seven patients. They have recently begun a randomized controlled study at six institutions across Japan, where 57 patients needing ACL reconstruction surgery are broken into one group who receives the experimental material and one group who has their own tendons from other areas transplanted. The study aims to establish the efficacy and long-term safety of transplanting the cow-derived material.
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