Stem Cell Treatment in Orthopaedics

Stem cells participate in healing processes in the body. When tissues are damaged, these cells get activated and enable the repair of the damaged structures by releasing growth factors. In addition, stem cells can also transform themselves into different tissue types such as muscles, bones, joint cartilages, and fats.

There are two main types of stem cells used in medical treatments. One of these are the stem cells acquired from the fetus while the other stem cells are obtained from adults. In effect, fetal stem cells have a higher transformation potential than stem cells acquired from adults; however, the use of fetal stem cells is rare due to ethical questions. Therefore, common medical practices are conducted with adult stem cells with lower transformation capability.

How are Stem Cells Obtained?

Stem cells are found in many tissues in the human body. Stem cells are mostly used in the treatment diseases related with the musculoskeletal system and this is the reason why they are mostly acquired from bone marrows and intra-abdominal fat tissues, where stem cells are found in the greatest numbers. In some cases, stem cells can be obtained from other tissues such as the synovial membrane between the knee joint and muscles.

Roughly speaking, one in every hundred thousand cells is a stem cell. For an effective treatment, the number of these cells needs to be increased. To this end, obtained tissue samples are reproduced in cell culture environment or centrifuge.

Where Can We Use Stem Cells?

In orthopaedics, stem cells are especially used in the restoration of damaged cartilaginous structures of joints. More precisely put, physicians can make use of these cells in the treatment of advanced knee and hip joint arthritis. In addition, certain studies also suggest that stem cell therapy can be effectively applied in muscle injuries and delayed bone unions.

What is Stem Cell Treatment?

Once cultured or centrifuged, stem cells can be administered in two different ways. The first one of these methods is injecting stem cells into the joint. The other option encompasses inserting stem cells into the damaged area during a surgical procedure, which often employs arthroscopic method. PRP and prolotherapy can also be useful to enhance the effect of stem cell treatment further. For more information on these applications, please refer to our articles on PRP and prolotherapy.

Stem cells do not cause any alteration in the genetic structure of patients and, therefore, it should not be regarded as gene therapy, an experimental technique that uses cells to compensate for abnormal genes or to produce beneficial proteins.

Reliability of Stem Cell Therapy

The overall success rate of stem cell therapy applied to restore cartilages is 80 percent, a considerably exceptional percentage for a newly developing area in medicinal sciences. Moreover, it should also be underlined that the number of studies in this area have been increasing in recent years and it looks very likely that many more studies on stem cell treatment will follow in the near future.