Stem Cell rich injections are now available for patients dealing with painful conditions. This represents a potential breakthrough in pain management for patients dealing with back, neck, arm, and leg pain.
For decades the gold standard in pain management treatment has been steroid injections for spinal or extremity pain issues. These cortisone injections work well with excellent results over 75% of the time. However, steroid injections do not alter the course of arthritis or soft tissue injury. They simply offer pain relief for a finite time period and then need to be repeated usually. In addition, there are significant limitations on the frequency with which corticosteroid injections may be performed due to potential adrenal gland problems and blood sugar issues. Most pain doctors recommend no more than once every few months for injections, and if multiple joints are being injected the total amount of steroid going into the body can add up quickly.
For a long time, the holy grail for arthritis and soft tissue injury has been to find a cell regenerating injection substance which both relieves pain and helps regenerate bone or soft tissue. Steroid injections only help with the pain relief portion. The non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory, stem cell injections that are processed from amniotic fluid have the potential for cartilage and soft tissue regeneration along with offering pain relief.
The regenerative effects have been shown in both the laboratory as well as in animal studies. Cartilage defects have been able to be filled with real cartilage. What is seen now is that cartilage defects typically are filled in with pseudo-cartilage, which is also known as fibrocartilage. This is not nearly as durable long term as native types of cartilage.
The non-steroidal stem cell therapy product is made from the amniotic fluid of live donors, and is neither fetal nor embryonic. The stem cells that come in the substance are not pluripotent, meaning they are not capable of differentiating into all cell types. However, they are capable of differentiating into most cell types, including, bone, muscle, and cartilage, which is the most important for orthopaedic and pain management injections.
The human amnion derived allograft has been used over 4000 times in the US over the past few years. Indications have included soft tissue injections, spinal fusion enhancement, wound healing, degenerative joint disease, joint injections, and injection around the spinal cord as a scar barrier. Adverse events with this potentially regenerative medicine substance have been minimal and results have been encouraging.
At this point in time, regenerative medicine injections are becoming more and more popular. Larger research studies need to be done, so for now the anecdotal excellent results are enough to spur its popularity.
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