Alpha 2 Macroglobulin for Arthritis treatment
Alpha 2 Macroglobulin, a newer orthobiologic from your own blood that can treat arthritis. In this video Siddharth Tambar MD discusses more details.
#regenerativemedicine
Alpha-2-macroglobulin, this is an interesting new treatment available for regenerative medicine specialists, that’s been around for the last few years, that I am personally starting to use more and more of. So, alpha-2-macroglobulin is a naturally occurring, large plasma protein in your own blood that has anti-inflammatory effects. It essentially blocks the effectiveness of proteases, including matrix metalloproteinase. So, inflammation in the body is interesting. There’s acute inflammation, there’s chronic inflammation, there’s systemic inflammation. Acute inflammation after an injury is generally short-term helpful, in terms of your body’s ability to recovery from an injury, you need that. But if your body doesn’t regulate that, self-regulate that appropriately, that can become chronic inflammation. Alpha-2-macroglobulin is one of those proteins that helps to self-regulate that inflammation. So, what’s fascinating is that we can now concentrate alpha-2-macroglobulin in a high enough level in concentration that when injected into a joint, it can help with inflammation. So, in osteoarthritis, this is an interesting option in some patients.
I have some experience also in utilizing this in mild to moderate inflammatory arthritis patients as well, and I think there’s value in those cases, also. And then lastly, combining it with other regenerative treatments, including platelet-rich plasma or bone marrow-derived stem cells is interesting because now you’re layering orthobiologics on top of each other to get different sorts of effects. Can you reduce a chronic effusion in a joint, chronic inflammation in a joint that’s causing pain? Can you improve the stability in the joint by strengthening the ligaments with platelet-rich plasma? That is a nuanced, and interesting approach, to treating certain osteoarthritis patients and even some inflammatory arthritis patients. Whether or not alpha-2-macroglobulin may be helpful in an inflamed tendon or acutely irritated nerve, is another area to explore that’s still relatively new. But this is another exciting and interesting example of regenerative medicine pushing the boundaries of science and how we can help people.