Stem cells from fat tissue as a new therapy for sports injuries
Vienna (2015-10-20) — After a serious sports injury consisting of a rotator cuff rupture and an ailing elbow doctors prognosticated the end of the career for a professional baseball player. The result of a stem cell therapy even surprised the treating physician – because only afterwards the top athlete reached the height of his career in terms of performance.
Presently, treatments with autologous stem cells are becoming increasingly important, also in the sports sector. By targeted administration of stem cells into areas concerned they can not only be used for prevention and regeneration of sports-induced degenerative damages, but also for the cure of already existing injuries.
Sporting bests put high physical strain on the body and thus often entail serious consequences. In many cases surgical treatments are not satisfactory and by the way connected with pain and complex rehabilitation. A treatment with stem cells thus provides a gentler alternative with the objective of regeneration both for professional and amateur athletes and enables a quicker healing process.
“Therapies with stem cells extracted from autologous fat can obviously give back joints, ligaments, and muscles their original functionality,” says DDr. Karl-Georg Heinrich, physician from Vienna who is working in the field of regenerative and aesthetic medicine. In his Clinic DDr. Heinrich® stem cells from the patient’s own fat are used for therapy of degenerative diseases, circulatory disorders, osteoarthritis, nervous conditions, and for skin regeneration.
Treatments of joint problems with stem cells are performed on an outpatient basis under local anesthesia. After a gentle liposuction with microcannulas stem cells are extracted from the harvested fat in a complex process and subsequently injected into the joint concerned, or systematically administered by means of infusion. In case of intravenous administration stem cells are able to find their way to the place where repair is needed. If required, it is useful to repeat the treatment.
The use of stem cells from autologous fat tissue has the advantage over stem cells taken from bone marrow that they are available in the human body in huge amounts and therefore an artificial cell expansion in the laboratory is superfluous.
“If stem cell therapy of degenerative damages, whether in the area of joints, cartilage, or muscular tissue, is performed in time, some surgeries and tedious rehabilitation therapies can perhaps someday be spared,” says DDr. Heinrich. “Nevertheless, there are many more studies necessary, for instance to show why this therapy is especially successful in some patients, while in others it is less.”
Further information: https://stemcelltherapy.cc/
Contact:
Clinic DDr. Heinrich®
Contact: Herfried Wagner
E-mail: info@ddrheinrich.com
Web: http://ddrheinrich.com/
Phone: +43 1 532 18 01