Experimental Treatment of Chronic Lower Back Pain with Stem Cell Therapy in Degenerative Disc Disease
The product running under the code name MPC-06-ID is being developed by the American company Mesoblast Ltd, and is currently under a nationwide clinical trial involving 330 participants in the United States, controlled by the Food and Drug Agency (the authority responsible for drug approval).
In the USA alone, more than four million people suffer from chronic lower back pain, caused by damage to the intervertebral disc due to aging, genetics, or external impacts. When the disc degeneration in a patient reaches a level where pain or loss of various functions can no longer be managed with conservative treatments (medications, physiotherapy), surgery currently remains the only viable option.
This is what the MPC-06-ID aims to change, with a single dose containing six million so-called mesenchymal precursor stem cells derived from bone marrow, which are injected directly into the damaged disc during treatment. As part of the trial series, patients' conditions are monitored for 12 months after the procedure to examine whether there is detectable regeneration of the treated discs compared to the placebo group.
