Currently available stem cell therapies depend on harvesting the patient’s own stem cells, processing them in a laboratory, and injecting small numbers of these stem cells back in the patient.
These procedures involve:
- Surgery and anesthesia – Tissue for stem cells is surgically extracted from the body under anesthesia resulting in pain after the procedure. There is always the risk of complications from surgery.
- Wait time – The tissue after extraction is sent to either an in-house or a remote laboratory for processing thus requiring a waiting period or a second visit to the veterinarian’s office for the injection.
- Cell vitality – Because the tissue processing is done in harsh chemical conditions the vitality of cells is compromised. Even though your veterinarian has done a good job at extracting the right kind of tissue, the way it is processed and transported can damage the cells.
- Expensive – The costs of other stem cell treatments run into few thousands of dollars for the pet owners.