Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread worldwide, leading to a global pandemic, resulting in a dramatic loss of human life and presenting an unprecedented challenge to public health. The COVID-19 outbreak affects all population segments, including people living in poverty, senior citizens and the elderly, people with disabilities, youth, and indigenous peoples.

Scientists around the world are trying to develop new medicines and test some existing drugs to see whether they can treat COVID-19. In the meantime, several drugs are used to relieve symptoms and complications of COVID-19 infection.

World health organization (WHO) recommends oral and systemic corticosteroids to treat patients with severe and critical COVID-19.¹

According to the WHO, patients with severe COVID-19 infection can develop a systemic inflammatory response. It has been successfully proven that the anti-inflammatory effects of corticosteroids help to prevent the harmful inflammatory response of COVID-19 infection.¹

According to the meta-analysis published by Wang J et al., the worldwide proportion of COVID-19 patients receiving corticosteroids is 35.19%.²

Doctors have observed a massive surge in avascular necrosis (AVN) patients after the second wave of Covid-19 due to life-saving high-dose steroids. Avascular necrosis, also called osteonecrosis, is the death of bone tissue due to the lack of blood supply to the femoral head (hip joint). It causes tiny breaks in the bone, which leads the femoral head to collapse.³

Avascular necrosis of the femoral head (ANFH) is a painful condition affecting the hip joint (femoral head) of Covid-19 patients, one of the post-Covid complications among recovered patients.⁴

--Dr. Sanjay Agarwala, Orthopedic surgeon, Hinduja hospital Mahim West Mumbai

Corticosteroids increase fat cell differentiation, which causes fat embolization and intravascular coagulation; it decreases the blood supply to the bone cells/tissues, eventually bone tissue death, resulting in avascular necrosis.⁶

Doctors suggest that patients look for the following signs if they were COVID-19 infected in the past and were on steroid treatment.⁵

We have observed a sudden rise in AVN cases during the Covid-19 second wave. They were all survivors of COVID-19. All these patients were receiving life-saving high dose steroids.”

-Dr. Agarwala, Joint Replacement Surgeon Hinduja hospital, Mahim West, Mumbai

AVN is a lifelong complication; non-surgical treatments like Ayurveda, Physiotherapy, Homeopathy, or medicines temporarily relieve the pain but do not arrest the disease progression.

Core Decompression removes the dead bone but does not help in new bone formation. Thus, disease progression leads to necessitating a Total Hip Replacement (THR) Surgery, which severely restricts daily activities. Also, metal implanted hip have a short shelf life & need to be replaced again after 8-12 years.

Cell therapy is the only treatment option that stops disease progression completely and helps in new bone formation. OSSGROW® is a specific bone-forming cell (autologous adult live-cultured osteoblasts) therapy option for curative treatment of early stages of AVN. The fresh and healthy bone-forming cells of OSSGROW® start new bone formation in the affected (necrotic) area. It helps to preserve the joint retain its structure, strength, and function.