Earlier in November, Rafael Nadal, the 14-time Grand Slam winner, announced he would receive stem cell treatment to help heal his ailing back, the same type of treatment he received for his knee. His doctor in Barcelona, Dr. Angel Ruiz-Cotorro, who has been treating Nadal for 14 years, said, “Nadal’s back pain is ‘typical of tennis’ players in that the treatment is meant to help repair his cartilage.” Stem cells were recently extracted from Nadal for a cultivation process to “produce the necessary quantities,” said Ruiz-Cotorro. Once cultivated, the stem cells will be placed into the joints of his spine with the goal of regeneration of cartilage as well as for an anti-inflammatory effect. Dr. Ruiz-Cotorro predicts that Nadal can return to training in early December.
Will stem cell treatment work for Nadal’s Back Pain?
Stem cell treatment may seem logical in certain situations – for example, if you have a mechanical problem where a knee has worn out cartilage, causing bone to rub against bone, it makes sense to use stem cells to grow new cartilage to have a cushion to protect the bone and cause the knee to be less painful. As much as we may want to see him back on the courts 
grabbing more grand slam titles, if Nadal’s stem cell treatment is being used to eliminate his pain by repairing his joints or discs, the actual cause of his back pain may not be addressed.
Where does back pain originate?
The number one reason for back pain is muscular and other soft tissue, yet muscles are rarely evaluated as the cause of back pain. The only way to determine if Nadal’s back pain is from soft tissue and similar to most people with back pain would be a physical examination of Nadal’s back that included identifying possible muscles as the cause of his pain.
Some doctors believe that the disc, the cushion between the bones of the spine (the vertebra), is a major cause of back pain. They believe that surgeries to correct the flattening or herniation of the disc will decrease or eliminate back pain. Sometimes they are right, but they are just as likely to be wrong. The truth is that there is as high as a 50% failure rate for spine surgeries that were done to eliminate back pain thought to be related to disc problems. There are other joints in the spine that are thought to cause pain; one of them is the facet joint, which could also be a target for stem cell treatments.
When doctors rely on an MRI or CT scan to determine the source of the pain, the information obtained is often confusing. If a surgeon sees an abnormality on an MRI, he will often point to that abnormality as the cause of the pain; in my experience the abnormality found on an MRI or CT scan frequently is not the cause. In fact, if you randomly selected 100 people off the street, and perform an imaging scan, 40 may present with a herniated disc and have no pain and absolutely no awareness of their herniated disc; 70 may have degenerated (worn) discs with no pain, and a large number will have facet joint abnormalities. Therefore, finding an “abnormality” is more common than not. One, then, can deduce that the abnormality is more likely NOT the source of the pain. So treating the abnormality (with steroid injections, surgery, or stem cells) may therefore not relieve the pain.
Stem Cell Treatment and Sports Stars
Nadal, currently ranked as the number 3 professional tennis player in the world, is not the first sports star to chase after a “miracle cure.” The Denver Bronco quarterback Payton Manning and Yankees pitcher Bartolo Colon both went abroad to seek out stem cell treatment as a quick fix to get back in the game. (They both seem to be doing better overall, but it is inconclusive if the stem cell treatment was the cause of their recovery).
Will it work?
In the laboratory, it has been possible to demonstrate the ability of stem cells (most commonly found in the developing embryo and newborn) to grow new tissue. These cells are like silly putty; they can turn into, or adapt, to become any type of tissue. For example, a stem cell in the right environment in the body could become bone, cartilage or some organ (for example, liver or pancreas). But, it hasn’t been as easy to grow tissue in an actual person. There are some early studies that show that stem cells “may” relieve back pain, but both the doctors who are testing the technique and outside experts say much more research is needed before they can say whether the treatment offers real relief.
The use of stem cell therapies continues to be a hot topic for debate in the sports medicine and orthopedic surgery worlds. There is no current evidence-based research to prove that it works.
Sir William Osler, a famous physician, once said: “Use every new treatment as quickly as possible before it stops working.” Stem cell treatment needs to be further investigated to determine if stem cell treatments indeed work, and if so, for what conditions?
