Report: Dez Bryant had bone marrow transplant cells put into his foot

As a means to give himself a long-term health boost, Dez Bryant reportedly had bone marrow transplant cells put into his foot, according to Ian Rapoport, who broke the news on NFL Network.

So, what in the world does this mean?

According to Dr. Rajagopalan, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports and fitness procedures in Los Angeles (via Taylor Bloom of SportTechie.com), it would allow an athlete’s body to heal itself without surgery.

“Stem cell therapy is being used around the world to regenerate or re-grow tissue in one’s body that could not regenerate itself without having harvested and injected from one’s own cells.

“For example, many people suffer with torn cartilage called meniscus in the knee. It was thought in the recent past that the only modality of treatment was to cut the tissue out arthroscopically or to temporarily numb the area with cortisone injections. Now we have the ability to regenerate the tissue back to its original state before the damage occurred, and avoid surgery with immediate pain relief.”

Obviously, the benefits of such a procedure could be tremendous.

If Bryant’s foot suffers any minor setback as he comes back from his surgery, then, theoretically, his body should be able to heal itself while also offering a relief from pain.

One wonders if such a procedure will be legal in the future, or if it will be deemed an illegal performance enhancing procedure. For now, there is no rule against it, and it appears Bryant is doing everything he can to make a successful return.

And, if he does make a successful return happen much sooner than most estimates indicated when he first suffered the injury, which was a broken metatarsal of his right foot, then there is a good chance we’ll be hearing more about bone marrow cell injections in the future as other athletes give it a try.