Regenerative Medicine

Regenerative Medicine

Jennings Orthopedic Clinic is proud to offer regenerative medicine. Regenerative medicine is a revolutionary area of medicine that can completely heal damaged tissues and organs, treating a wide range of orthopedic conditions.

Although regenerative medicine was practiced years ago, advances in immunology as well as developmental and cell biology have unleashed new opportunities to improve existing regenerative treatments as well as develop new ones. Today, regenerative medicine can be used as an alternative to joint replacement, knee surgery, and more.

Have you tried treatment options such as physical therapy, NSAIDS, or steroid injections have not provided significant relief? Did you know that your own tissue may help you heal?

Every tissue in your body is constantly repairing itself. Adipose tissue (fat) has been widely studied in literature and is known to have an innate healing potential. The use of fat was documented during World War I to aid in the healing of soldiers’ battle wounds.1 Since then, a large body of research has shown a variety of promising applications for fat in healing and regenerating damaged tissues.

Benefits of Your Own Fat

Your own fat has been shown a variety of promising applications in healing and regenerating damaged tissues in orthopaedic surgery. Benefits of fat include:

  • Fat is abundant in the human body
  • Fat can be easily accessed and harvested using a minimally invasive procedure and local anesthesia
  • Fat contains many reparative cells that not only regenerate fat cells, but also promote a healing environment throughout the body 2,3
  • Research has shown that regardless of a person’s age, their fat maintains the reparative properties 4,5,6 unlike other tissues such as bone marrow, which may lose healing capacity with age 6

Fat cells. Coloured scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of adipocytes (fat cells). Adipocytes store energy as an insulating layer of fat and the majority of the cell’s volume is taken up by a large lipid (fat or oil) droplet. Fat accumulation starts with a few small lipid droplets which coalesce to make one large droplet. When mature, the adipocyte may be 10 or 20 times its original size. Magnification: x1650 when printed at 10 centimetres wide.

Introducing Lipogems

Jennings Orthopaedic Associates is now offering Lipogems, a cutting edge technology that uses fat tissue from the patient’s stomach or thigh area to cushion and support areas of injury or damage as your body heals itself. Using the natural and beneficial properties of the fat tissue, Lipogems is injected into the injured area with the guidance of an ultrasound. This minimally invasive procedure can be performed in under one hour in the office or in addition to surgery.

Benefits of Lipogems

Jennings Orthopaedic Clinic has chosen Lipogems because of its many benefits, such as:

  • Ability to be used throughout the continuum of your orthopaedic care.
  • Lipogems washes your fat tissue to remove the inflammatory oils and blood but preserves the natural and beneficial properties of the tissue.
  • Lipogems tends to stay in the area where it is injected instead of being reabsorbed by the body, allowing your body to maximize the benefits of Lipogems for an extended period of time.
  • Can be performed in the office or in addition to surgery using minimally invasive, patented and proprietary FDA cleared device.

Who Can Benefit From Regenerative Medicine?

Regenerative medicine can benefit patients with a variety of orthopaedic conditions by targeting the underlying problem and promoting the ability of the body to heal itself. If you meet any of the conditions below, you may be a candidate for Lipogems.

  • You suffer from an injury or ailment that limits your normal daily functioning or physical activity
  • Have a soft tissue defect in the tissue of tendons, ligaments, and muscle
  • In order to restore orthopaedic function, these defects require tissue repair and regeneration, as well as cushioning and support
  • Treatment options, such as physical therapy, NSAIDS, or steroid injections have not provided significant relief
  • You would like to explore Lipogems as a minimally invasive alternative to a major surgical intervention
  • Your doctor determines if it may be used in addition to your surgery

What To Expect Following The Procedure

As with any medical procedure, it is important to understand what to expect in the days following. After completing Lipogems:

  • Your doctor will help determine what activities you can perform and put you on a treatment plan.
  • Patients should not engage in strenuous activity for at least 1-2 weeks following the procedure.
  • Patients may experience mild to moderate swelling and/or local inflammation at injection site and/or site of tissue harvest for up to 4-5 days post-procedure.
  • Patients may be given some pain medication and should follow your doctor’s recommendations.
  • Ice may be used to reduce local inflammation/swelling.
  • A compression garment maybe given to wear for a few days after the procedure.
  • Patients may have some bruising at or around site of tissue harvest.

Learn More

Although there has been a significant amount of progress in the field of orthopedic medicine, in certain cases current palliative and evidence-based treatments cannot keep up with the needs of patients. There are a limited amount of techniques used to treat the root causes of many injuries and conditions, making it more common for doctors to help patients manage the symptoms they experience rather than to treat the conditions that are causing their symptoms. With regenerative medicine, Jennings Orthopaedic Associates and our team of board certified orthopaedic surgeons, are changing the face of orthopaedic care in North Carolina.

For more information on regenerative medicine, we invite you to contact our office or request an appointment via our website. We look forwarding to treating you.

Individual results vary. Not all patients will have the same post-procedure recovery and activity level. See your physician to discuss your potential benefits and risks.

The Lipogems System is a sterile medical device intended for the closed-loop processing of your own fat tissue in medical procedures involving the harvesting, concentrating and transferring of your own fat (adipose) tissue harvested with a legally marketed lipoplasty system. This can be used as an alternative, and/or adjunct to surgery, to support soft tissue defect repair and may promote healing in orthopaedics and arthroscopic surgery. Lipogems may or may not be appropriate for all patients.

Like any medical procedure, there is a risk for soreness, redness, swelling, and/or pain. These procedures require needle access (size, location and depth vary depending on the procedure) and this may result in (but not limited to), discomfort, pain, apprehension, bruising, tenderness, bleeding, swelling, or infiltration at the injection site. Other symptoms that may occur include lightheadedness, fainting, nausea, or vomiting. There is slight risk of an infection at the injection site and have minimal risk of adverse reactions or complications as with any other injection procedure. Since the fat is from your own body there is no concern of disease transmission, allergic reaction or tissue rejection. For patients with chronic medical conditions such as autoimmune, diabetes, heart or lung disease, circulatory diseases or obesity, extreme caution may be necessary.

There are rare but possible risks and complications due to fat transfer including an allergic reaction to the local anesthetic, damage to underlying structures, hematoma or seroma (an accumulation of blood or fluid under the skin that may require removal), changes in sensation, unsatisfactory results that may necessitate additional procedures, permanent discoloration caused by a ruptured blood vessel at the treatment site, calcification, a divet in the area of the tissue harvest, perioperative bleeding, a blood clot at the treatment or donor site, an infection, scar tissue, and a fat embolism caused by a fat injection mistakenly directed into a blood vessel, and death.

The information presented is for educational purposes only. Speak to your doctor to decide if the Lipogems procedure is appropriate for you. Individual results vary and not all patients will return to the same activity level. The lifetime of any procedure is limited and depends on several factors like patient weight and activity level.Your doctor will counsel you about strategies for your post-procedural care. It is important to closely follow your physician’s instructions regarding post-procedure activity, treatment and follow-up care.

Ask your doctor if the Lipogems procedure is right for you.

Lipogems or other corporate affiliated entities own, use or have applied for the following trademarks or service marks: Lipogems. All other trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners or holders.

REFERENCES

  1. Duhamel, G. (1928). Les Sept Dernières Plaies: Mercure De France.
  2. Tholpady, Sunil S., Ramon Llull, Roy C. Ogle, J. Peter Rubin, J. William Futrell, and Adam J. Katz. “Adipose Tissue: Stem Cells and Beyond.” Clinics in Plastic Surgery 33.1 (2006): 55-62. Web.
  3. Yoshimura, Kotaro, Hirotaka Suga, and Hitomi Eto. “Adipose-derived Stem/progenitor Cells: Roles in Adipose Tissue Remodeling and Potential Use for Soft Tissue Augmentation.” Regenerative Medicine

4.2 (2009): 265-73. Web. 4. D’ippolito, Gianluca, Paul C. Schiller, Camillo Ricordi, Bernard A. Roos, and Guy A. Howard. “AgeRelated Osteogenic Potential of Mesenchymal Stromal Stem Cells from Human Vertebral Bone Marrow.” Journal of Bone and Mineral Research 14.7 (1999): 1115-122. Web.

  1. Melief, S. M., J. J. Zwaginga, W. E. Fibbe, and H. Roelofs. “Adipose Tissue-Derived Multipotent Stromal Cells Have a Higher Immunomodulatory Capacity Than Their Bone Marrow-Derived Counterparts.” Stem Cells Translational Medicine 2.6 (2013): 455-63. Web.
  2. Caplan, Arnold I. “Adult Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Tissue Engineering versus Regenerative Medicine.” Journal of Cellular Physiology 213.2 (2007): 341-47. Web.