Orthopedic surgery, traumatology and sports medicine in Spain
Athletes in the hands of professionals
Some call Barcelona the “capital of sports medicine”.
Dr. Ramón Cugat is a “surgeon to the stars” in the truest sense of the word. His skilled hands help elite athletes get back to life…or at the very least to the game! His loyal patients include the stars of teams like FC Barcelona, Manchester United, Bayern, Chelsea, Juventus and Shakhtar…in short, Dr. Ramón Cugat is the world’s leading doctor for football players the world over, but also for pros from a range of disciplines including cycling, skiing, and martial arts.
He is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant and well-known surgeons for knee injuries, fractures, ligament and meniscus injuries, arthritis and other diseases that involve operations from arthroscopy to knee prosthesis. But he is also recognized for his precise diagnoses, his expertise in the latest techniques of non-surgical treatment and, simply, for being a doctor in every sense of the word: a consummate professional who cares about each and every patient. Dr. Cugat is also known for being one of the pioneers in introducing advanced non-surgical techniques into orthopedic surgery, including the injection of growth factors and stem cells to regenerate the knee’s anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and damaged cartilage, based on stem cells (bone marrow or fat) extracted from the patient, one of the most cutting-edge frontiers in orthopedic surgery. The Fundación Dr. Cugat, one of the most active centers for research in this area, has had extremely promising results.
Experts like Dr. Rafael González Adrio and Dr. Joan Nardi use minimally invasive techniques for hip surgery, performing joint reconstructive surgery, for example, and the placement of prosthesis through the Brain Lab navigator, which makes the utmost precision and speed in prosthesis placement possible. This technique has had excellent results, not only in the elderly (coxarthrosis of the hip, typical in older patients), but also in young patients, including athletes, who can continue with their sports careers after getting the prosthesis.
The traumatology and orthopedic surgery services at the Dexeus University Hospital also offer solutions for spinal injuries. The service is led by Dr. Enric Cáceres, member of 25 scientific committees and recipient of 15 awards; his publications have received widespread international recognition and have a significant impact on the specialty (300 publications in prestigious scientific journals and co-author of more than 70 books). Dr. Cáceres is a recognized international expert in the treatment of spinal disease: surgeries for fractures and deformities of the spine, slipped discs, surgery on metastases and tumors of the spine, as well as an expert in cell therapy with mesenchymal stem cells. The active use of minimally invasive techniques (microsurgery, percutaneous surgery, cell therapy, etc.) in the treatment of spinal cord injuries, deformations and degenerative diseases of the spine makes the most spectacular results possible with the minimum inconvenience for patients.
Noteworthy Barcelona doctors with experience in fractures and injuries of the arm, elbow and wrist include Dr. Xavier Cuscó (Quirón) and Dr. Álex Vidal (Teknon). Specialists in brachial plexus surgery include Dr. Santos Palazzi, expert in the reconstructive microsurgery of peripheral nerves and brachial plexus, including autotransplantation with microsurgery.
Another recognized expert in sports medicine in Barcelona is the head of the Department of Surgery and Microsurgery at the Dexeus University Hospital, Dr. Xavier Mir: his patients include Europe’s sport elite, like the Moto GP and Dakar Rally world champions. If Dr. Cugat, with whom we started this section, is the top knee surgeon in the world of sports, Dr. Mir’s has treated the best racers: Dani Pedrosa, Marc Márquez, Jorge Lorenzo, Nani Roma, and Colin Edwards, when they have suffered issues that require his expertise. Each sport has a predisposition to a type of injury, and elite athletes are a particularly demanding type of patient: not only is it necessary to achieve impeccable results, but these results must be achieved in the smallest timeframe possible. The fact that Barcelona has become a place where the world’s most prominent athletes come for treatment speaks for itself!
