Essay Assignment on Evaluating Stem Cell Therapies

Stem Cell Therapy and Osteoarthritis
Author’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Blog Title: Why Doctors Are So Excited About Using Stem Cell Therapy to Treat Joint Pain
Author: Yenny Rojas
Link: /2018/11/02/why-doctors-are-so-excited-about-using-stem-cell-therapy-to-treat-joint-pain/
National Stem Cell Centers (my chosen website) offer to use regenerative medicine instead of surgical procedures, medications or use of synthetic compounds in treating osteoarthritis (OA), knee pain, back pain and chronic inflammation. The center confirms FDA approval and satisfied patient with 5-point ratings. In the coming section, I will be comparing their claims with a scientific article regarding the use of stem cell therapy for osteoarthritis and knee pain.
Arthritis, knee pain and joint pain have recently increased in incidence with an estimate of 27 million people suffering from it in the United States alone. The elevated disease also causes an increase in its treatment paving a need to develop more efficient and less costly interventions. Regenerative medicine has similarly gained attention and momentum with its successful patient ratings within the last decade. It is the utilizations of biogenics i.e. body’s natural healing process to eliminate inflammation or pain. This information provided by the website is in line with recent scientific research which declares that the mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) have the ability to distinctly form into osteoblasts, chrondocytes or adipocytes making them a mode of natural tissue repair and regeneration. The MSCs have properties that boost the anti-apoptotic, anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic mechanisms of the body contributing to the destruction of hyaline cartilage, inhibiting pro-inflammatory pathways, differentiation in to specialized connective tissues (Freitag, Bates, Boyd, Shah, Huguenin & Tenen, 2016). Thus, MSCs have been recently found to effectively deal with the body’s healing process in natural ways.
The National Stem Cell Center claims to procedurally retrieve the patient’s own adult stem cells (mostly adipose tissue) and inject it back at the injured point. Their procedure is done under local anesthesia under is proved to cure a number of patients in their clinic’s records. Numerous case studies and clinical trials specifically focusing on stem cell therapy for osteoarthritis have been published in the last decade ranging their results from mild to significant improvement in their pain. An 87-year-old Korean female with stage 3 OA subjected to MSCs showed 70% improvement in pain with increasing thickness of cartilage tissue on the knee’s medial side while a 68 years old male Korean showed 80% improvement in pain and increased cartilage on the anterior medial side of the knee. The study discusses marked improvement in all patients of the clinical trial if not 100% (Pak, Lee, Park, Jeong & Lee, 2016). It claims MSCs to be naturally healing, a minimally invasive and promising treatment for OA in human knees. Another case study conducted in Tehran, Iran undertook 4 patients with moderate to severe OA who went through the procedure resulting in pain betterment, increased range of motion on stairs and generally (Davatchi, Sadeghi ...