Study Finds Fat Stem Cells Effective in Treating Pets' Elbow Arthritis

RJ Note: Now this is exciting! Hey doc, I've got this pain in my neck......

24-7 -- Vet-Stem, the San Diego-based company using fat-derived stem cell therapy in veterinary medicine, recently had its second study with positive findings published. The multi-center clinical trial, published in Veterinary Therapeutics Fall 2008, revealed that dogs treated with stem cell therapy showed statistically significant improvement in lameness, pain and range of motion for elbow injuries.

"This study reinforces the importance of our work--we are making tomorrow's medicine a reality today," says Vet-Stem CEO Robert Harman. "We have seen hundreds of dogs benefit from the Vet-Stem regenerative cell therapy, and we are elated the results of this scientific study confirm such success."

Vet-Stem regenerative cell therapy has been used on horses since 2002 and launched for dogs in early 2008. Since then, more than a thousand veterinarians have completed the online credentialing course allowing them to use the stem cell therapy on more than 1,000 dogs across the nation.

"We've seen stem cell therapy save dogs whose only other option was euthanasia," said Dr. Harman. "And for animals where surgery and pharmaceuticals are not an option, Vet-Stem helps with problems like arthritis and joint and tendon injuries."

The procedure is simple. Veterinarians remove a small sample of fat from the dog and send it to Vet-Stem. Laboratory technicians isolate regenerative stem cells that reside in the fat, the high number of stem cells available eliminates the need to grow cells in culture or to manipulate the cells. The cells are then returned to the authorized veterinarian for treatment of the injured animal within 48 hours from collection of the fat.

The results from this study expand on one published in 2007, which explored the effectiveness of Vet-Stem's therapy for hip related osteoarthritis. The outcome showed that stem cells do improve healing in injured or arthritic dogs' hips. The findings stated that in a blinded, placebo controlled, clinical trial 80 percent of dogs improved significantly after being treated by stem cell therapy.

The most recent study published is only the beginning for the future of fat-derived stem cell therapy. Vet-Stem is currently conducting studies for the use of stem cells for internal medicine conditions as well.

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