Overview

Mesenteric stem cells after cleaning and concentration

Stem cells – a new therapy for the repair of tendons, ligaments and joints in the horse.

Over the last few years a lot of new regenerative methods were developed for the treatment of horses.

Among these therapies is the use of stem cells in the horse.

Stem cells – background information

Stem cells are cells which are not specialized for one special organ, like liver or muscle. Stem cells have the potential to differentiate into multiple types of cells.  The cell’s environment will determine what happens to the single cell.

Depending of the origin of the stem cell there are mesenchymal and embryonic stem cells.

Embryonic stem cells are cells from blastocysts. During embryonic development, those cells differentiate into all different organs and structures.

Somatic (aka adult) stem cells - in comparison- can be found in the body after birth. They act like reserve cells which can differentiate into different cell types.  For example, they could develop into new liver cells. They can be found in various concentrations in nearly every organ, like bone marrow or fat tissue. Their potential to differentiate is not as big as in embryonic stem cells.

For horses stem cell therapy gives a new chance to heal injuries of tendons, ligaments and joints.
Before stem cell therapy we used hyaluronic acids for tendon injuries, and Irap or corticosteroids for joints.

For the last three years autologous bone marrow has been used for tendons and ligaments. Only 0,001–0,01 % of the cells harvested from bone marrow are stem cells.

Now we can offer our patients two new therapies: stem cells recovered from fat tissue and stem cells from bone marrow, which are cultured for 15–20 days in order to increase the concentration of the stem cells.