Joint cartilage transplants to improve quality of life
Never say never again. This James Bond movie title certainly applies to medical research. Only a few years ago, cultivating joint cartilage tissue for transplants as a way of using the body’s own tissues to heal cartilage damage caused by sports injuries in knee and ankle joints was thought to be impossible. Today researchers have already set their sights on spinal discs. More than 200 million people around the world suffer from illnesses related to the skeletal system. Approximately 1.85 million arthroscopic surgeries are performed every year in the USA and Europe, and 350,000 knee endoprostheses are implanted. Being artificial structures, implants are always associated with the risk of rejection by the patient’s body. To prevent this risk, patients must often take immunosuppressant drugs, sometimes for their entire lives. For young people in particular, there is also the risk that the implant will wear out over time, thus necessitating a new operation. In light of this situation, two emergency surgeons in Reutlingen founded a company in 2000. Their goal was to replace implants with transplants for young people, in other words to use the body’s own tissue rather than artificial materials. Transplants eliminate the risk of rejection. The body’s natural healing power supports the healing process. The two founders named their company Tetec – TE for tissue engineering and TEC for innovative technology. Tetec AG is a subsidiary of Tuttlingen-based Aesculap AG. From its initial core group of three people, the company has grown into an interdisciplinary, 30-person organization, and is experiencing very successful growth.