A registry is simply a way to track a patient’s outcome and possible complications. Tracking patients through a registry is often performed through a third party, often a non-profit or quasi-government body. The most common registries have been for bone marrow transplantation. In addition, in many countries, joint replacements are tracked through a registry. Many clinics offering stem cell therapy fail to provide enough tracking for patients. The International Cellular Medicine Society (ICMS) has noted that few if any clinics actually follow-up on patients at set time periods to determine the outcome of the procedure and make sure no complications have occurred. This is one of the criticisms leveled by scientists at stem cell clinics; rather than collecting all the data about their therapies (in a process like a registry) and reporting that data (when appropriate sample sizes have been obtained) in peer reviewed publications, most tend to cherry pick positive results and ignore negative results. The physicians who perform the Regenexx procedure have always required all patients to be extensively tracked, and as of this year, entry into the ICMS registry for cell therapies is a requirement. The reason? This data is invaluable not only to us, but to the world. As ICMS collects more and more data in this registry, the true benefit and possible complications of stem cell therapies will be known. In addition, more importantly, they will be published. The physicians practicing the Regenexx family of procedures have published the safety of the Regenexx-C procedure in the National Library of Medicine and continue to collect data on all Regenexx procedures. So if you’re considering getting stem cell therapy for an orthopedic condition, your first question should be, what non-profit registry do you participate in? Since there’s only one in existence at this point, if the clinic doesn’t participate in the ICMS registry, the clinic has refused to honestly have a third party collect the data for the procedures they offer. The next question should be, why?
Tags: complications, side effects, stem cell, therapy
