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Anabolic Steroids can prove effective for shoulder tears

Anabolic Steroids can prove effective for shoulder tears Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill suggest that anabolic steroid treatment can prove to be effective in improving surgical repair of recurrent or massive tears of the shoulder’s rotator cuff tendons.

This study was led by Dr. Spero Karas, Assistant Professor of Orthopedic Surgery in UNC’s School of Medicine. A bioengineered tendon that figured in experiments of this study was developed by Dr. Albert J. Banes, Professor of Orthopedics and Biomedical Engineering at UNC.

From News-Medical.Net:

Anabolic steroids benefit millions of people a year, said Karas, including those with deficiencies in sex hormones and burn victims who need to build up their metabolism to repair musculoskeletal tissue. They also are FDA-approved for treating anemia for their ability to help the body rebuild blood.

As it’s widely known that anabolic steroids can build muscle mass and strength, Karas said he thought these properties might apply to shoulder tissue and that Banes’ bioartificial tendon might provide the appropriate model for testing.

“In this new study, supraspinatus tendon cells were harvested from my patients during rotator cuff surgery, isolated and then sent to Albert’s lab,” Karas said. “The cells were then grown in his culture media to coalesce and form this experimental tendon model, the bioartificial tendon.”

Prior to applying mechanical strain, the researchers treated some of the developing tissue with the anabolic steroid nandrolone decoanate. The steroid was administered directly into the lab dish via pipette, or dropper.

“We clearly found that when you looked at the bioartificial tendon matrices that were treated with anabolic steroid and then mechanical load or strain, we saw significant increases in their biomechanical properties,” Karas said.

Karas further said that there is a synergistically kind of relationship between load and anabolic steroid when it comes to improving tendon characteristics. He also said that the crucial implications of this study may be applied in the near future to post-surgery healing of tendons that may have been left torn or retracted for a long time.

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