“There was evidence of meniscus regeneration and improvement in knee pain following treatment with allogeneic human mesenchymal stem cells,” C. Thomas Vangsness Jr., M.D., and colleagues wrote, via a press release. “These results support the study of human mesenchymal stem cells for the apparent knee-tissue regeneration and protective effects.”
For the study, Vangsness and colleagues studied 55 patients at seven institutions who underwent partial medial meniscectomy-a surgery used to treat torn knee cartilage-and received study treatment 7 to 10 days following a superolateral knee injection.
The participants were divided into several groups, including Group A, which received of 50×106 allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells, Group B, which received 150×106 allogeneic mesenchymal stem cells, and Group C – the control group – which received a sodium hyaluronate injection.
Just a year following the treatments, results showed that meniscal volume had increase for Group A by 24 percent and Group B at 6 percent. Unfortunately Group C did not achieve significant change in meniscal volume, according to background information from the study. Groups A and B also reported having less pain than Group C, based on VAS scores. However, findings also showed that these scores improved slightly for all at baseline.
Stem-cells are simply magical when it comes to the world of medical science, and a recent study involving a stem cell injection for pain relief and tissue regeneration in the knee shows their inner workings in action.