New treatment regenerates muscle lost in traumatic injury

By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. doctors said on Wednesday they have succeeded in coaxing the regeneration of muscle tissue lost in people who suffered traumatic injuries, including wartime bomb wounds, with a new type of treatment that uses material from a pig's bladder. Implanting the pig material at the wound site enticed the patient's own stem cells – master cells that can transform into various kinds of cells in the body – to become muscle cells and regenerate tissue that had been lost, the researchers said. The research was backed by $3 million in funding over five years from the U.S. Defense Department, said Dr. Stephen Badylak of the University of Pittsburgh, who led the study. Thousands of American troops have been left with serious physical impairments after sustaining wounds involving major loss of muscle tissue in roadside bombings and other incidents since 2001 in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.