stem cell results

by Oregon Regenerative Medicine

We have compiled our adipose tissue and cell treatment results for 6-month patient outcomes in 2017-2018, and the benefits are clear. The following statistics are for autologous adipose derived tissue grafts. Adipose is an ideal harvest tissue because, in addition to essential scaffolding tissues, adipose contains over 500 times the number of multi-potent reparative cells than are found in bone marrow. And while bone marrow stem cells decline rapidly as we age, adipose cell counts remain robust into our 70’s and 80’s.

Here is a summary of our patient results for osteoarthritis (OA) of the knees and hips at 6 months post-treatment:

  • Average improvement of Grade 1 (Early OA): 95%
  • Average improvement of Grade 2 (Moderate OA): 75%
  • Average improvement of Grade 3: (Advanced OA) 70%
  • Average improvement of Grade 4 (Severe OA): 50%

Note that Osteoarthritis Grade, which is determined by the severity of degeneration, is a strong factor in achieving positive outcomes. The earlier we treat, the better the stem cell results.

Overall knee & hip stem cell results:

  • 80% of OA patients achieve at least 50% improvement in pain and mobility.
  • 42% of OA patients achieve at least 90% improvement in pain and mobility.

Want to improve your biocellular treatment results?

We have seen 3 lifestyle factors that have improved our patient’s outcomes:

Exercise/movement has a strong positive influence. This is in line with multiple published studies showing that moderate exercise consistently improves knee osteoarthritis. (1)

Losing weight makes a big difference (even if the patient is still overweight). Again, this is in line with multiple published studies showing that weight loss improves knee and hip OA. What is even more interesting is that studies have demonstrated that caloric restriction via intermittent fasting improves the health of aging stem cells, and increases the ability of your stem cells to become new cartilage. (2)

(Biologic) Age is a prominent factor (the younger, the better). Not surprising, younger age improves stem cell results. The most important benefit to younger age is earlier treatment in the course of the disease, i.e., earlier stages of OA do better. The chronological age of your tissue is less important, as long as the patient is not on multiple pharmaceutical drugs (polypharmacy). When we look at our patient outcomes, we have observed that biological age is more important than chronological age: A healthy, active 80-year old has better outcomes than an unhealthy, sedentary 50-year old. (3) (4)

Overall Outcomes

  • Knees tend to benefit the most.
  • 90% of labral tears of the knees and hips achieve on average 90% improvement. (5)
  • 90% of meniscus tears gain 90% improvement on average.
  • The largest improvements are generally seen at 6-12 months.
  • Long term (over 1 year) outcomes are most dependent on overall health and exercise.

In Conclusion

If you have OA of the knee(s) or hip(s), our regenerative, biological procedures can improve your quality of life, restore mobility, and eliminate pain. For best adipose tissue graft results, treat early, exercise moderately, and maintain a healthy weight. If you want to avoid joint replacement surgery, don’t wait until you have severe, end-stage arthritis.

(1) Positive Effects of Moderate Exercise on Glycosaminoglycan Content in Knee Cartilage: A Four-Month, Randomized, Controlled Trial in Patients at Risk of Osteoarthritis, EM Roos; L Dahlberg,  Arth Res, Nov, 2005

(2) Fasting Activates Fatty Acid Oxidation to Enhance Intestinal Stem Cell Function during Homeostasis and Aging. Cell Stem Cell, 2018; 22 (5): 769 Maria M. Mihaylova, Chia-Wei Cheng, Amanda Q. Cao, Surya Tripathi, Miyeko D. Mana, Khristian E. Bauer-Rowe, Monther Abu-Remaileh, Laura Clavain, Aysegul Erdemir, Caroline A. Lewis, Elizaveta Freinkman, Audrey S. Dickey, Albert R. La Spada, Yanmei Huang, George W. Bell, Vikram Deshpande, Peter Carmeliet, Pekka Katajisto, David M. Sabatini, Ömer H. Yilmaz.  DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2018.04.001

(3) Nugraha setyawan EM, Oh HJ, Kim MJ, et al. Despite the donor’s age, human adipose-derived stem cells enhance the maturation and development rates of porcine oocytes in a co-culture system. Theriogenology. 2018;115:57-64.

(4) Efimenko AY, Kochegura TN, Akopyan ZA, Parfyonova YV. Autologous Stem Cell Therapy: How Aging and Chronic Diseases Affect Stem and Progenitor Cells. Biores Open Access. 2015;4(1):26-38.

(5) Regenerative Repair of Damaged Meniscus with Autologous Adipose Tissue-Derived Stem Cells. Jaewoo Pak, 1 Jung Hun Lee, 1 , 2 and Sang Hee Lee 2 ,*Biomed Res Int. 2014; 2014: 436029. Published online Jan 30, 2014. doi:  10.1155/2014/436029 PMCID: PMC3925627