Assignment 25: Abstract

Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) tears are a time consuming and physically demanding injury to return to sports from. Many of my friends have experienced career ending ACL tears, so when I heard of a potential advancement in the ACL recovery from reconstruction surgery, I was instantly intrigued. The advancement includes using Stem Cells to speed up the recovery time, which is about six to nine months, and improve tendon-to-bone healing. My capstone was guided by my interest in how Stem Cells can possibly improve the recovery for those who experienced an ACL tear and how this could potentially lower the amount of athletes that end their career due to an ACL tear.

My research revealed promising evidence for an advancement in the recovery of ACL tears. Stem Cells are a group of cells than can differentiate into a plethora of other cells. Because of this, they have advanced healing properties. CD34+ cells, which are Stem Cells derived from the ACL tendon, seem to provide the most advanced direction for Stem Cell therapy. They provide the earliest remodeling of tendon-to-bon healing which speeds up the recovery time in return.

As I researched Stem Cell Therapy in ACL reconstruction, I discovered that it was a fairly new process and not many experiments had been conducted on human test subjects. My hopes are that they will continue to study the subject area and discover promising results that will reduce the recovery time and encourage athletes to continue to pursue their dream.