Knee Cartilage Repair Using Stem Cells

Mayo clinic offers a unique regenerative medicine approach for repairing knee cartilage which can be completed in a single surgery.

Knee cartilage repair using stem cells.

Stem cell therapy for knees aims to. Although stem cells can be differentiated into chondrocytes in vitro or aid cartilage regeneration in vivo their potential for osteoarthritis management remains limited as cartilage regenerated by stem cells fails to fully recapitulate the structural and biomechanical. Doctors who do the treatments cite anecdotal evidence as validation that the treatments work. Adult stem cells can be extracted by minimally invasive methods from fat tissue and bone marrow.

The stem cells derived from these tissues primarily aid cartilage repair. A surgeon preforming knee cartilage repair regeneration or replacement surgery may use stem cells or platelet rich plasma prp in hopes of encouraging new cartilage cell growth. However the poor ability of cartilage to self repair has motivated efforts to engineer replacement tissues and human mesenchymal stem cells msc which have an extensive proliferation potential and can undergo chondrogenesis have emerged as a promising cell source. The food and drug administration approved the use of this technique known as recycled cartilage auto allo implantation reclaim in a trial utilizing the stem cell bank in the mayo clinic center for regenerative medicine.

For knee injections doctors often take stem cells from the patient s bone marrow fat tissue or blood. This is a far different scenario from someone who has a badly damaged joint that is out of alignment lacks cartilage and has developed deformities such as bone spurs. Articular cartilage defects are one of the major challenges in orthopedic and trauma surgery. Mayo clinic offers a unique regenerative medicine approach for repairing knee cartilage which can be completed in a single surgery.

See are prp injections effective. The hope is that injecting stem cells may help stimulate the body to repair that damage before the cartilage is irreparably harmed. Half will have arthroscopic microfracture and mesenchymal stem cells administered weekly for up to 13 weeks post surgery while the other half will have. Both stem cells and platelets are involved in the body s natural healing process and the restoration of damaged tissue.

A year long animal study has provided research that demonstrates that stem cell treatments provide structural regeneration with mechanical properties comparable with the native cartilage. This phase ii study seeks to determine the effectiveness of using the patient s own adipose derived mesenchymal stem cell to repair cartilage defects. 40 participants will be recruited. In theory stem cell therapy uses the body s own healing mechanisms to help repair and slow the deterioration of body tissues such as cartilage.