Stem Cell Therapy & Regenerative Medicine

Dear Dr. Jody:  We have read a great deal of information online about stem cell therapy and how it can heal severely arthritic joints in both dogs and horses.  Our 9 year old standard poodle, Marley, has advanced arthritis in her elbows.  Pain medication doesn’t seem to be helping her.  Could stem cell therapy be the answer?

Stem Cell Therapy (SCT), also called Regenerative Medicine, is a very new treatment modality that some clinics have begun offering to assist in healing a variety of ailments in both horses and dogs.  Conditions that may benefit from SCT include osteoarthritis, immune-mediated polyarthritis, fractures, and tendon and ligament injuries. 

I like to explain to my clients that a stem cell is an undifferentiated cell that hasn’t decided what it will be when it grows up.  These baby stem cells have the potential to mature into more than two hundred different types of cells, depending on where in the body they are located.  For example, stem cells in the liver are typically predestined to become liver cells, while stem cells located in the joints can become cartilage or bone cells. 

Research has shown that stem cells can be harvested, isolated, and concentrated into very high numbers (in the order of 2-4 million cells per dose) and then injected back into the same patient, where they circulate throughout the body and finally congregate in areas where tissues have been damaged.

Damaged tissues send out chemical signals that attract stem cells.  For example, in human medicine, research has been done to show that stem cells can be harvested from a patient that has suffered a heart attack, processed, and then injected intravenously back into the same patient.  These stem cells respond to the signals sent out by the damaged heart muscle.  They travel to the damaged site where they can, to a significant degree, repair the damaged tissue and minimize the amount of scar tissue that forms as a result of the heart attack.  Because the stem cells are harvested from the same patient that will ultimately receive the processed stem cells, there is no risk of tissue rejection the way there is when a tissue donor is used.

There is a rich source of stem cells in bone marrow and in fat.  Harvesting a small sample of these stem cell-rich tissues through a very brief surgical procedure and then processing the sample in a special laboratory can yield a very high population of stem cells that can then be injected back into the body in strategic locations, either intravenously to circulate throughout the body, or directly into injured tissue such as an arthritic joint.  In animals, harvesting a sample of fat tissue is much less invasive than collecting a sample of bone marrow, and so this is the method that is typically used.

Studies have established that SCT can greatly improve the comfort and function of even the most badly damaged or arthritic joints in both family pets and performance horses.  There is currently research being conducted on the use of SCT to help regenerate and restore damaged tissues in other organs of the body as well, including liver and heart, but these specialized organ treatments are not yet commercially available.

If you would like more information on how stem cell therapy can help your arthritic pet or your performance horse to regain comfort, mobility, and function, please contact your nearest stem cell credentialed veterinary clinic.  Although this service may seem expensive, the benefit to the animal can be priceless.