AlloSource, a leading developer, processor and distributor of bone and soft-tissue allografts for use in surgical procedures around the world, will this year sponsor a living symbol of the evolving possibilities of tissue transplantation as a float rider aboard the annual Donate Life float in the Tournament of Roses Parade®. Susan R. Cossabone, an equine instructor from Egg Harbor City, NJ, was no longer able to ride horses following a devastating car accident. But now Cossabone thrives and rides again thanks to a cutting-edge product consisting of bone and adult mesenchymal stem cells from a tissue donor. On January 2nd, Cossabone will join 27 other riders from around the country on the Donate Life float, now in its ninth year, in a tribute to the millions of people touched by organ, tissue and blood donation.

AlloSource CEO Tom Cycyota said ““We are thrilled to once again sponsor a float rider aboard the Donate Life Rose Parade float as a way to increase awareness about tissue donation, which is still lesser understood than organ donation but can have the same life-saving and life-enhancing benefits. Susan is a symbol of the exciting new ways we can do more with life, thanks to the courageous generosity of tissue donors and their families.”

To read more about Susan, click here.

The fall resulted in a broken tibia, or shin bone. Doctors recommended that she have surgery to repair the bone, as it was not likely to heal well enough on its own. The surgery involved implanting a steel plate against her bone for structural support. Additionally, after finding osteoporosis in the bone during surgery, the doctor chose to also transplant bone grafts from a deceased human donor into Jane’s injured bone to allow it to strengthen over time.

An unfamiliar concept to Jane, she questioned her doctor about the bone tissue transplant.

“I asked the doctor if compatibility studies had been done,” Jane said. “He explained that contrary to organ transplants, it was not necessary.”

The surgery was successful and next Jane began the slow healing process, which involved a walker, physical therapy and new medication to treat her osteoporosis. She could not put weight on the leg for eight weeks while it healed. However, she knew the process could have taken even longer had she not received the bone graft transplant, and she could have encountered other complications.

To Jane’s delight, following her transplant and healing period she has experienced a full recovery and is back to enjoying myriad outdoor activities in Colorado. When she was approached to write a thank-you letter to the family of the donor that provided her bone graft, she jumped at the opportunity.

“It brought tears to my eyes. It was so sweet and poignant to be able to express my appreciation for what their loved one had done and how it improved my life,” said Jane. “My husband has had a corneal transplant, which was very successful.  There was no opportunity at that time to express our thanks, which is why the letter I wrote meant so much to me.”

Jane continues that if she could, she would tell her donor: “my heartfelt thanks. I would feel privileged to donate tissue myself, especially considering the fine example I have benefitted from.”

Connie says “If one life can breathe easier because of me, then I’ve gained my own measure of success. If I could speak to my donor I would say: thank you for helping to make people at a small county fair smile. You’re a success.”

“An argument erupted behind me,” Connie said. “I stood up to move to the other side of the table but my snow boot caught on the rung of the chair just as one man pushed another into me, knocking me over.”  Shortly thereafter, as Connie was still lying on the floor, a large man fell onto her legs. Connie sustained serious injuries: her left leg was broken and her right ACL was blown out.

Aside from the pain and day-to-day struggles that dealing with two injured legs presented, Connie’s injuries also meant she could not adequately do her job, which she had a great passion for. After serving as Montana’s property tax supervisor for 30 years, Connie was at the time working as the local county fair manager. Although the work was taxing (including everything from negotiating entertainment contracts to cleaning horse stalls), she absolutely loved it.

“Seeing smiling faces at a summertime county fair is one of the warmest feelings a heart can experience,” Connie said.

As a full year passed after the injury, Connie’s broken leg was casted and healed. She wore a brace on her right knee with the injured ACL, and knew her options for that leg were either to live with the injury in a brace for the rest of her life, or try an ACL transplant, using donated tissue from a deceased human donor. Eager to resume an active lifestyle and work for the county fair, Connie opted for the transplant.

The surgery didn’t require any large incisions, only 4 small holes where instruments expanded the skin around Connie’s knee for viewing and working. Doctors performed meniscus reconstruction and then anchored the donated tendon diagonally from her tibia to femur.

Following the surgery Connie was excited to get her leg back into working order. However, she was tired of the frequent doctor visits from the past year, and wasn’t pleased with the prospect of having to return again for physical therapy. Instead, she set up her own therapy routine at home.

“After a few harrowing days in a recliner I got on an exercise bike. I began slowly pedaling in front of the TV, an hour each morning and night. I had quite a setup. Morning Sudoku and coffee while pedaling to the Today Show, herbal tea and a sitcom at night,” she said. And the training worked; Connie’s doctors were very pleased with her gradual improvement in range of motion.

By Spring of 2010, after a year of working from home, Connie was elated to be able to get back to the fairgrounds and the work she loves.

“It’s now been one and a half years since my transplant.  I still get a little stiff if I don’t stay active, but I recently finished my second summertime county fair since surgery and reports from the public are that this was the best one in years,” she said.

Connie reflects on the gift of life that allowed her to return to work with earnestness and appreciation.

“I believe the body is the human’s earthly vessel.  Our deceased loved ones are hopefully in a wonderful place; their tissue is no longer needed by them.  I honor whoever is selfless enough to understand that,” Connie said. “We offer an unused blanket to a shivering homeless man, food to a starving child, spare change to a simple benefit drive or money in the collection plate at church.  We give.  It’s an odd feeling for me to be a recipient of any such gift because I’ve always been more of a giver, but I feel humbled in knowing someone gave tissue to me when I was in need.”

Connie is a registered organ, tissue and bone marrow donor. “As the old saying goes, if one life can breathe easier because of me, then I’ve gained my own measure of success. If I could speak to my donor I would say: thank you for helping to make people at a small county fair smile.  You’re a success.”

It was the holidays in 2005 and Sarah Tomicich was a young professional excited about her new job in the finance department of a large Denver company. Fun-loving and outgoing, Sarah was happy to offer up her talents for the playful “Stupid Human Tricks” competition at the company’s annual year-end party.

Sarah’s trick was a squirm-inducing move she’d been doing since she was a little girl: rising up on her tip toes, she would rotate her feet until her toes were pointing straight behind her body, with her legs still together. But the trick didn’t go smoothly this time.

“My ankle popped; I thought I broke it,” Sarah said. “The pain was so bad. It was horrible.”

During an initial trip to the doctor, Sarah’s injury was misdiagnosed as a sprain. She went home hoping it would heal on its own. For the next several years Sarah tried to deal with the pain, but her ankle was never the same. The injury began to take a serious toll on her active lifestyle: she could no longer do the things she loved, including skiing and running. She would push herself to play team sports like kickball, but be miserable from the pain for days afterwards.

An eventual trip to an ankle specialist revealed what Sarah already had a suspicion of: her injury was much more serious than a sprain. In fact, the peroneal tendon on the outside of her foot was torn, and worse, a large portion of the cartilage on her ankle joint had torn off. Although her tendon was repaired with a surgery, initial attempts to heal the joint were unsuccessful. Sarah had lost too much cartilage, a tissue the body is incapable of reproducing.

Sarah’s doctor suggested treatment with an autograft, whereby bone and cartilage from her own knee would be transplanted into the injured ankle. As luck would have it, by now Sarah was working for one of the nation’s premier tissue banks, AlloSource. Here she had become aware of the tissue transplantation process. Sarah knew that although frequently used to treat injuries, autografts could lead to other complications: in her case the potential for infection in her healthy knee, a slower recovery from two surgeries and more.

Sarah urged her doctor to consider an allograft transplant, a gift of life from a deceased donor. The decision was made to use one of the newer allografts available thanks to new science: juvenile cartilage. These grafts, bravely donated by the families of donors just one month to 12 years old, had been found to stimulate new cartilage growth when implanted with stem cells.

Following her tissue transplant, Sarah’s results have been miraculous. After a final surgery in December 2010, her doctors found that cartilage is indeed regenerating in Sarah’s ankle.

“It’s fascinating to see this cartilage re-growing,” Sarah said. And she is able to feel the benefits already. “I can ski again and it doesn’t hurt. I’ve started to wear high heels again; I haven’t worn high heels for years! It feels really good.”

Her work at a tissue bank has heightened Sarah’s respect for her second chance at a healthy life: “I have had the opportunity to see it from the perspective that everyone should see it from; I have interacted with donor families and really comprehend that this is a gift of life that somebody else gave to me because they lost their own.”

Sarah also reports a stronger kinship with her colleagues at AlloSource, who work 24/7 to process donated human tissue into allografts used for a host of surgical applications around the country.

“Processing these allografts is tedious and includes a lot of hard work. I’ve been able to thank the techs I work with for what they do every day.”

According to the story: “Brian J. Cole, MD, MBA, presented his group’s findings at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Arthroscopy Association of America … Cole reported that the procedure could reduce pain, increase range of motion and improve joint function in the long term.”

Kudos to the Lubbock FOX network for shedding light on this issue, noting “a tissue donor has the ability to help a burn victim or give a star athlete a chance to return to their sport after a major injury like tearing of an ACL. Across the nation there is a massive demand for skin as well as sports-related orthopedic tissue.”

Are you a tissue donor? If not, sign up with Donate Life America.

Check out the FOX story here: http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-donatelife-120609,0,5087399.story

Orthopedic spine surgeons at the event told us how powerful AlloStem Stem Cell Bone Growth Substitute, a new bone growth substitute made from adult stem cells, will be as a biologic solution. The second product we introduced, AlloWrap Natural Wound Cover, is a natural biological wound cover that has shown impressive results in animal studies.

This was a key industry meeting for us, as AlloSource is now the world’s largest processor of live cellular bone growth substitutes – an accomplishment we’re very proud of. At the show we mingled with some of the world’s spine care leaders; there were nearly 4,000 in attendance from all over the globe.

Check out our brief video (above) for a tour of the AlloSource booth at the event.

AlloStem Stem Cell Bone Growth Substitute, an adult human stem cell bone graft, is recovered from adult human adipose tissue and is processed and cryopreserved by AlloSource into a stem cell bone graft used by surgeons to promote bone growth and healing. Adipose tissue is a rich source of a wide variety of stem cells, and some laboratory studies indicate it is the human body’s primary source of stem cells.

Surgical patients are already benefiting greatly from these stem cell grafts in spinal fusions, and when used to repair bone fractures and breaks. More than 30,000 patients have received adult stem cell grafts.  AlloStem Stem Cell Bone Growth Substitute presents patients and hospitals unique benefits not only because of its scientific capabilities, but also because its cost is significantly lower than other bone grafting options currently in use.