Stem cell therapy made a big media splash just about a decade ago, when doctors and clinics began advertising it as a treatment for sports injuries, arthritis, and other conditions. It has been around for much longer than that. In fact, science has been studying stem cell therapies for decades.
Nearly all modern stem cell therapies are rooted in mesenchymal stem cells. There may come a day when we learn how to harness pluripotent stem cells to the extent of being able to grow specific tissues in a lab setting. But for now, all the success we have enjoyed in the stem cell arena is the result of what mesenchymal cells can do.
Generating Specific Kinds of Tissue
Stem cells of all types are responsible for generating tissue. Beginning with conception, stem cells become everything from human blood to skin to bones and joints. If we can learn how to harness stem cells to the degree that we can consistently and safely manipulate them, we can come up with all sorts of treatments for some of the most devastating diseases on earth.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many FDA-approved stem cell treatments right now. Perhaps the most well-known is the bone marrow transplant that saves the lives of so many leukemia patients. Healthy stem cells are extracted from a donor and injected into the bone marrow of the leukemia patient. If all goes well, the patient ultimately ends up in remission.
Stem Cells for Soft Tissue Injuries
Chances are you are more familiar with stem cell treatments for soft tissue injuries. Perhaps you have read about professional athletes who elect stem cell injections rather than surgery. Maybe you’ve heard of doctors recommending stem cell injections for osteoarthritis. All such treatments utilize mesenchymal stem cells.
Mesenchymal stem cells can differentiate into different kinds of tissue. However, they are limited to their own type. For example, the stem cells extracted from bone marrow can differentiate into a variety of soft tissues including muscle, tendon, and ligament.
In a sports injury scenario, the idea behind stem cell therapy is to encourage proper healing without the need for external intervention. A pitcher choosing stem cell injections over Tommy John surgery would be banking on the fact that the stem cells would help his elbow heal faster and more effectively than the surgery.
Treatments Allowed by the FDA
Stem cell treatments for soft tissue injuries are sometimes falsely labelled as being not FDA approved. While such treatments are not approved specifically on a case-by-case basis, they do not need to be. Current FDA regulatory language allows for mesenchymal stem cell treatments as long as the biological material used in the treatments is both autologous and minimally manipulated.
In other words, the stem cells a doctor injects into a patient must come from the patient himself. Those cells cannot be manipulated to any significant degree. That is exactly what patients get when they seek treatment from a clinic like Lone Star Pain Medicine in Weatherford, TX.
Lone Star doctors say that stem cell injections are becoming increasingly popular with pro, amateur, and weekend athletes. Doctors are taking a serious look at the injections to treat osteoarthritis as well. In conjunction with PRP therapy, stem cell therapy offers a new way to treat soft tissue injuries and diseases without surgery or long-term pain medications.
The Future Looks Bright
We are not as far along in our understanding of stem cell therapy as we would like to be. But thanks to what we know about mesenchymal stem cells, the future looks bright.