Home › Blog › Introducing the Regenexx-SD Plus Procedure…

As many of you know, we spend heavily on innovation. It’s a little humorous sometimes to see small clinics claim they’re doing innovative stem cell work (or what we’re doing) by simply taking a weekend course somewhere and using old technology. In contrast, we have a PhD led lab research team and a physician/bio stats led clinical research team to constantly update what we can offer. Last year we started various projects to determine if we could come up with a way of processing bone marrow that nobody had ever used. If so, could we double or even triple the number of stem cells extracted? We didn’t triple the number of stem cells being extracted, we bumped it up 500%+ over what we could do before. Thus Regenexx-SD Plus (SD+) was born.

So where was the bar set with Regenexx-SD? Using that procedure we could extract about 3-4X stem cells per cc over what the average automated bedside centrifuge could muster. These little machines are used by 98% of the physicians using bone marrow stem cells. All the physician really knows is where to place the sample in the machine and how to push the “ON” button. Because of this and the fact that these machines have to be one size fits all to process very different bone marrow samples from very different patients, it wasn’t hard to beat these little devices. However, could we do better? Our research team investigated many different ways to process marrow. After discarding many, we finally discovered one that was pretty revolutionary. However, while extracting more stem cells is something just about everyone would agree is a net positive, if it doesn’t make a clinical difference, who cares?

Below is clinical data for knee arthritis patients from before and after making the switch to the new Regenexx-SD+ procedure. As you can see, there are dramatic, statistically significant changes in the LEFS functional scale (knee function) and pain relief with the new SD+ process when we compare many treated patients (average follow-up is 5 months). So not only are we getting more stem cells, we’re getting better results. All Regenexx network providers are offering SD+ and all have been trained in the procedure. Is there an extra cost for this more advanced processing? No, everything will remain the same. So if you do the math, per stem cell you’re receiving, Regenexx is best value out there!

The upshot?  SD+ is a second generation same day stem cell procedure and we’re already working on the third. We’re on our third generation platelet lysate (a mix of growth factors isolated from platelets) and working on our fourth. We’re on our second generation SCP (Super Concentrated Platelets) and working on our third. This is how we roll. This is also something you’ll never see from small mom and pop clinics offering discount stem cell procedures who are using older technology. Why spend huge amounts of money on million dollar research labs and innovation? Because Regenexx isn’t run by guys running spreadsheets in Wall street, but physicians. We personally benefit (as does every Regenexx doc) when we innovate because our patients benefit. Most people struggle to think outside the box, at Regenexx, we say, “What box?” There’s Regenexx and then there’s everything else….

Chris Centeno, MD is a specialist in regenerative medicine and the new field of Interventional Orthopedics. Centeno pioneered orthopedic stem cell procedures in 2005 and is responsible for a large amount of the published research on stem cell use for orthopedic applications. View Profile