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UAMS First in Arkansas to Offer Knee Implant for Pain
Adults who once suffered for years with arthritic knees while waiting until they were old enough for a total knee replacement now can benefit from an innovative procedure available in Arkansas only at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).
UAMS’ Richard Evans, M.D., this week became the first surgeon in Arkansas and among the first in the United States to perform the bicompartmental knee resurfacing after becoming certified for the procedure along with a select group of orthopaedic surgeons, primarily from academic medical institutions.
“This is a brand new, exciting advancement,” said Evans, chief of Adult Reconstruction, director of the Center for Hip and Knee Surgery and associate professor in the UAMS Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. “This implant procedure gives us an early interventional treatment for many of our patients who are too young for a total knee replacement but who are in desperate need of pain relief.”
Raymond Foltz of Cabot became the first Arkansas patient to receive the implant during the hour-long surgery on his right knee, which included the removal of painful arthritic bone surfaces. Evans described Foltz as an extremely healthy, active 71-year-old whose surgery today will allow him to resume a pain-free, active lifestyle and delay a total knee replacement for another 10 to 20 years.
Foltz was walking within hours of surgery and is expected to have full strength in his knee and leg in about four weeks.
The advanced procedure provides a dual benefit for adults with arthritis who may also have knee ligament damage, often due to sports-related accidents, Evans said. Arthritis sufferers have been poor candidates for knee ligament surgery because repairing ligaments does not improve the pain and disability caused by their existing arthritis.
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| UAMS’ Mark Helm, M.D., M.B.A., is medical director of the Prescription Drug Program that helped save the state’s Medicaid program $38 million. |
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UAMS, NCI Scientists Find Potential for New Treatments for Multiple Myeloma
Cancer researchers at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) joined colleagues in a National Cancer Institute (NCI) study identifying changes in multiple myeloma cells that may offer a path for neutralizing malignant cells.
Researchers from the Myeloma Institute of Research and Therapy (MIRT) in the UAMS Arkansas Cancer Research Center (ACRC) were part of a team that found molecular mutations in multiple myeloma cells that activate an important biological pathway associated with cell growth and survival. This knowledge offers potential for new treatments for multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood’s plasma. Multiple myeloma is expected to result in 10,790 deaths and 19,900 newly diagnosed cases this year in the United States.
UAMS treats more than 2,250 patients with myeloma annually at the MIRT – more myeloma patients than are treated at any other facility in the country.
The results of this research appear in the August 2007 issue of the journal Cancer Cell. The study was a collaborative effort among basic scientists, pharmaceutical partners and UAMS’ large clinical trial group.
“This is one of the largest collaborative translational cancer research efforts of its kind,” said John Shaughnessy, Jr., Ph.D., director of the Donna D. and Donald M. Lambert Laboratory of Myeloma Genetics and chief of Basic Sciences at the MIRT, and one of the study’s authors.
“These results attest to the power of patient participation in clinical trials and the collaborative interactions between clinical and basic scientists. This research approach is anticipated to provide a quantum leap in the speed at which we understand how cancer starts, how best to treat it, how to prevent resistance to treatment and how to prevent the unwanted side effects associated with many treatment strategies currently in use.”
The research team’s discovery began with the observation that a signaling pathway, called the NF-kappaB pathway, was activated in a majority of the multiple myeloma cells they tested. Using a novel drug that inhibits this pathway, researchers demonstrated that many myeloma cells either died or stopped dividing when the NF-kappaB pathway was disrupted.
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