Awhile back a forum member posted information about a new and promising therapy for dogs with osteoarthritis and tendon/ ligament injuries using injections of the dog's own fat cells.

http://www.leerburg.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/186324/page/0/fpart/1

I was reminded of this thread by a story in today's local paper :

http://www.montereyherald.com/ci_9141284?nclick_check=1

Some of us know that we will be looking at an arthritic dog somewhere down the road, either due to a surgical repair of an injury or dysplasia. This therapy seems encouraging enough that I thought I'd give it its own thread, both for people researching this site for treatment options and for people who have actually tried it to post their experience with it.

The company's web site is here:
http://www.vet-stem.com/

I read the study that they post on that web site. There were 18 dogs in the study, 9 per arm (treatment and placebo). The improvements in the treated group are greater then in the placebo group, but the differences are not huge. Figure 2 seems to show a large difference, but they plot it as the % improvement, which exaggerates the differences. Table 1 shows the raw data, and while it shows improvement in disability for some behaviors, lameness at walk, lameness at trot, pain on manipulation and range of motion, changes in functional disability were the same for the two groups. There are a lot of stories on the web of happy owners with improved dogs. A neighbor of mine said that she has seen impressive results with this therapy in horses.

One potentially exciting application is DM, canine MS, which is untreatable. I remember reading that they were conducting a trial of stem cell therapy in dogs with DM, but I could not find it on their web site just now.

If my dog were facing surgery for OA, I would certainly consider this therapy, as it is far less invasive, and in NYC at least, probably less expensive. I would wait for more dogs to be treated however, to see how the numbers stack up. An important study would be a comparison of surgery to stem cell treatment. For now, Syn-Flex is working very well for him.