Journal of Oncology Translational Research

Extraction of blood mesenchymal stem cells with the low speed centrifugation concept: A paradigm shift for pain therapy in orthopaedics

Abstract

Joseph Choukroun

Regenerative therapy with stem cells has gained tremendous momentum over the past decade as a modality geared towards markedly improving wound healing of various tissues by utilizing undifferentiated autologous host cells.  While stem cells may be isolated from various locations in the human body, more recently it has been shown that low levels of mesenchymal stem cells also exist circulating within peripheral blood. Platelet rich fibrin (PRF) is a regenerative modality that utilizes peripheral blood + centrifugation protocols without the use of anti-coagulants to create a three-dimensional tissue engineering scaffold containing both growth factors and autologous cells. Very recently, it has been shown that modifications to centrifugation speed and time following recently developed concepts (the low-speed centrifugation concept or LSCC) resulted in a marked increase in host cells and growth factors. Within these scaffold constructs, mesenchymal stems cells were also found following collection with this relatively painless and low-cost modality. The objective of the present talk will be to present recent modifications to centrifugation speed and time to optimize stem cell quantities within PRF. Thereafter, the biological data supporting their numbers, as well as their potential for clinical applications will be presented with data coming from many fields and especially in orthopaedics for osteoarthritic knees.