Jason L. Dragoo, MD
Key Documents
Contact Information
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Clinical Offices
Sports Medicine Center - North Campus 450 Broadway Street Pavilion A, 2nd Floor MC 6120 Redwood City, CA 94063 Tel Work (650) 723-5643 Fax (650) 721-3422Practices at Stanford Hospital and Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital
Professional Overview
Clinical Focus
- Sports Medicine
- Orthopaedic Surgery
Administrative Appointments
- Head, Team Physician, Stanford Football Program (2007 - present)
- Team Physician, Stanford Athletic Department (2005 - present)
Honors and Awards
- US Ski Team Physician, United States Ski and Snowboard Association (2005-curr)
- US Olympic Committee Level III Physician, Volunteer Services, US Olympic Committee (2010-curr)
- Top 70 Best Knee Surgeons in America, Becker's Hospital Review (2010)
- Listed in Top US Orthopeadic Surgeons in Sports Medicine, Consumers Research Council of America (2008)
- North American representative for Scientific Exchange with Europe, AOSSM/ESSKA (2008)
- Bone and Joint Decade Young Investigator Award, Bone and Joint Decade (2006)
Professional Education
| Board Certification: | Sports Medicine, American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery (2010) |
| Subspecialty Certification: | Sports Medicine, American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery (2011) |
| Board Certification: | Orthopaedic Surgery, American Board of Orthopaedic Surgery (2007) |
| Fellowship: | Steadman-Hawkins Sports Clinic CO (2005) |
| Residency: | UCLA Health Sciences CA (2004) |
| Internship: | UCLA Health Sciences CA (1999) |
Graduate & Fellowship Program Affiliations
Community and International Work
Scientific Focus
Current Research Interests
TISSUE ENGINEERING OF ARTICULAR (JOINT) CARTILAGE
Current Tissue Engineering studies will focus on 3 main areas:
1. The ability to harvest stem cells from a patient, induce them into cartilage cells, and place them back into the patient during the same surgical procedure. Current surgical techniques require 1 surgery to harvest the cells, 2-3 weeks of laboratory processing, and another surgery to implant the cells. These techniques would revolutionize the use of stem cells in Orthopaedic Surgery.
2. Reconfigure the biologic matrices and processing to allow resurfacing of entire joint surfaces. This process would make current metal joint replacements obsolete and would allow the treatment of arthritis with the patients own stem cells.
3. Decipher the genetic induction code and ideal matrix for meniscal cartilage engineering. This would allow the production of meniscal cartilage grafts from the patients own stem cells.
ANTERIOR CRUCIATE LIGAMENT (ACL) STUDIES
1. Female ACL tears-The incidence of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture in female athletes is two to eight times that in males. Although many anatomical and biomechanical gender differences have been described, evidence is beginning to accumulate that female hormones are responsible for alterations in ligament laxity and strength. Relaxin is a peptide hormone found in the sera of pregnant and non-pregnant females, yet is not detectable in male serum. This hormone is thought to be responsible for connective tissue remodeling secondary to its collagenolytic effects.
We have identified relaxin receptors on the human female ACL. This supports the conclusion that relaxin, a hormone found in some non-pregnant females, may be responsible for the high incidence of ACL rupture in female athletes. We have also shown that the administration of relaxin to female guinea pigs results in ACL laxity and weakness. Currently, we are investigating relaxin levels in female intercollegiate athletes, and monitoring them to see if athletes with high relaxin levels are more susceptible to ACL injury. If this hypothesis is proven, we can then develop a blocking antibody to administer to susceptible female athletes to hopefully decrease the ACL injury rate.
2. ACL tears and Arthritis-We are currently evaluating the damage of articular cartilage during ACL injury. This may explain why certain athletes with ACL injury develop degenerative changes and early arthritis. Identification of cartilage injury patterns will help change treatment protocols to minimize the development of early arthritis in athletes.
3. New Surgical Techniques- We have created a new technique to perform revision (already had an ACL reconstruction, now it is torn again)ACL reconstruction during 1 surgical procedure. Previously, this procedure often required 2 surgeries: 1 to bone graft the previous bone defects and a second surgery 4 months later to reconstruct the ACL. This new procedure would save rehabilitation time and money and would mean less surgery for the patient. Final confirmatory animal studies are currently being performed.
PLATELET RICH PLASMA (PRP)
This procedure involves concentrating growth factors from the patient's blood and injecting them at the site of injury to accelerate healing. We are currently using this technique in our elite athletes to hasten their return to sport, and are beginning to investigate the use of PRP for many types of injuries including: tennis elbow, ulnar collateral ligament tears (baseball pitchers)of the elbow, tears to the patellar and quadriceps tendon, tears of the medial collateral ligament of the knee. We are also using PRP in the laboratory to help change stem cells into articular (joint) cartilage.
Clinical Trials
Publications
- Epidemiology of Syndesmosis Injuries in Intercollegiate Football: Incidence and Risk Factors From National Collegiate Athletic Association Injury Surveillance System Data from 2004-2005 to 2008-2009. Clin J Sport Med. 2013
- The systemic effects of platelet-rich plasma injection. Am J Sports Med. 2013; (1): 186-93
- Toe-in gait reduces the first peak knee adduction moment in patients with medial compartment knee osteoarthritis. J Biomech. 2013; (1): 122-8
- Acromioclavicular joint injuries in National Collegiate Athletic Association football: data from the 2004-2005 through 2008-2009 National Collegiate Athletic Association Injury Surveillance System. Am J Sports Med. 2012; (9): 2066-71
- Comparison of the acute inflammatory response of two commercial platelet-rich plasma systems in healthy rabbit tendons. Am J Sports Med. 2012; (6): 1274-81
- Effect of airline travel on performance: a review of the literature. Br J Sports Med. 2012
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