Alaa Abd-Elsayed, MD
Position title: Associate Professor Department of Anesthesiology; Medical Director, Pain clinic; Medical Director of Pain Services UW-Madison Division Chief, Chronic Pain
Email: abdelsayed@wisc.edu
- Organ System/Disease Focus:
- Musculoskeletal
- Aligned Research Focus:
- Role of stem cells in treating discogenic pain and knee degenerative disease
Research Description:
Degenerative disc disease (DDD) is a very common painful condition that affects millions of patients especially at old age. Treatment of this condition can be very challenging and usually includes medications, physical therapy, steroid injections and surgery for severe cases. Stem cell based treatments now represent an improved alternative strategy. Bone marrow concentrated cells (BMC) contain a variety of stem and progenitor cells, including mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) known to positively affect the nucleus pulposus cells of intervertebral discs. I am very interested in studying the effect of autologous BMC cells in treating moderate to severe discogenic low back pain.