The ON/AVN Support Group Int'l Association, Inc.
Research Project
time ever, ON/AVN patients have banded together and asked a hospital," Would you please help us by performing a research project aimed at understanding the causes of ON/AVN, and trying to devise a better cure?" The answer, without hesitation, was "Yes, we will help." The Hospital for Special Surgery, Manhattan, NY, was founded in 1863 as the first orthopedic hospital in the United States caring for the musculoskeletal problems of veterans of the Civil War and poor and homeless children. HSS is affiliated with the New York – Presbyterian Hospital and the Weill Medical College of Cornell University. HSS is very special to many of us in this Association. I am one of those people in our group who was fortunate enough to be able to go there for all of my joint replacement surgeries and was very impressed each time by their consistently high levels of care, knowledge, and professionalism. Honestly, I cannot praise HSS or my surgeon there enough. On the cutting edge of everything orthopedic, HSS seemed to me to be the logical choice to ask for help with a project of this importance. I was not disappointed; I expected no less. Our project will focus on two main areas. One area will focus on steroids and their relationship to ON/AVN. We need to know why these wonder drugs lead to AVN for so many people. We need to find a way to halt this reaction and to reverse it somehow. The second area of focus will be on bone regrowth for AVN patients. With the new technologies already available today, precious little research has been done which targets bone regrowth for bones riddled with AVN, bones that actually die. It is essential that we find a way to encourage new bone growth for AVN patients; there are only so many times in a person's life that any joint may be replaced. After that limit is reached, what choices, if any, will be available to us? Additionally, younger patients are often told they must wait until they are much older for a replacement. If ever a group of people needed help, AVN patients must surely be at the top of that list. Nothing can be worse than being in indescribable pain and unable to walk and then being told, "We don't know how to treat you." Or, "We can treat you, but you have to wait twenty or thirty years." We desperately need to turn this around, and we need to do it now. Too many lives are being totally disrupted by this painful and debilitating disease. Just look at the numbers! The NONF reports that there are at least a quarter of a million documented AVN sufferers today in the USA alone today, but that the actual number is probably much higher. Our members come from all over the world, and the numbers seem to be increasing over all each and every year. We cried out and someone heard our voices. Now, if we can raise the start- up fees, we can get this project underway. This is a monumental task for people who can barely walk, or not walk at all, and/or who have lost their ability to work and provide for their families. But, we have a saying in our group: " If we don't do this, who will? " We believe in ourselves and in each other and we believe that with some new research, answers will be found. Please help us to raise the money for this project. Our goal is to collect $170,000 so that we can begin. Please help us. You never know: it just might be you or one of your loved ones who may have to join our Association some day. We know you would want and expect answers to your problem, and by this research project we would hope to be able to give you, and everyone who suffers from this disease, some real hope. To learn how to make a charitable contribution to our cause, please visit our Donations page. Thank you from all of us... For more info, please write to: avninfo@avnsupport.org |
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