Health Care of the Future: Stem cell treatment in animals helping process

Phoenix Business Journal - by Angela Gonzales
Date: Thursday, November 4, 2010, 6:45 pm MST

Newland

Lilly, a 14-year-old American Eskimo, barely could walk because of the severe arthritis in her hips and legs. But that is changing as a result of a stem cell procedure designed to use the dog’s own regenerative healing power.

An estimated 25 percent of the 170 million dogs and cats in the U.S. have osteoarthritis, said Dr. Mike Hutchinson, a veterinarian with Nicholasville, Ky.-based MediVet America LLC, which has developed an in-clinic stem cell treatment for animals suffering from injuries and degenerative diseases.

Hutchinson, who has performed more than 75 stem cell transplants on dogs and cats, was in Phoenix on Oct. 7 to oversee Lilly’s treatment, provided by veterinarians at Adobe Animal Hospital.

Dr. Tom Newland, owner and medical director of Adobe, conducted the procedure, harvesting stem cells from Lilly’s fat and then injecting them into her arthritic joints.

MediVet’s treatment allows vets to separate the fat from the stem cells within about three hours so that the activated stem cells can be injected into the animal’s joints. In the past, vets had to send the fat to a laboratory in California, which would process the stem cells and ship them back for injection.

“By the time we got the cells back, 40 percent of the cells would die,” Newland said. “Now we are able to do the turnaround time within about three hours, with 400 times more stem cells than we’ve been able to do before.”

The treatment cost also is lower as a result of the streamlined MediVet system, he said. It once cost up to $4,000 for an animal stem cell treatment, but that now is down to $1,800, he said.

“It’s all done on the same day, which made it more affordable,” he said.

After much of the stem cell concoction was injected directly into Lilly’s arthritic joints, she received the rest of it intravenously.

One week later, she was in less pain, Newland said. He determined this by flexing her joints. Before the procedure, that caused the dog to try to bite him, signifying that it was painful. A week after the procedure, she tried to bite him only once during the six flex tests he performed on various joints. Newland will check on her again 30 days and 60 days after the surgery.

Lilly’s owner, Bill Chuchro, said she now runs through the halls of his home; before the procedure, she could barely waddle.

“She wants to go on walks in the morning,” he said.

When Lilly was younger, she would bounce on her front paws, begging for food, but she hadn’t done that in years, Chuchro said.

“She’s doing that again,” he said.

What’s even more amazing to Chuchro is that lumps on her body are beginning to shrink.

“Last week, this cherry-size lump was red. It’s now pink, and it’s gone from being cherry-size to lima bean-size,” Chuchro said. “It’s not as sensitive when I wash her. She’s not as worried about it.”

Newland said these applications may have promise for humans in the future.

“A lot of things we have done on the veterinary side has then panned out well for humans,” he said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require the same comprehensive testing for animal treatments as it does for humans, which makes it easier to get those to market faster. Still, these treatments need to be researched and reviewed by peers before they are accepted, Newland said.

Dr. Craig Woods, a veterinarian and founder of Animal Health Consulting LLC in Prescott, has worked in the area of tissue regeneration and repair for more than 15 years.

“The concept of extracting stem cells from one’s own tissue is a rapidly growing and promising area of human and veterinary medicine,” he said. “Veterinarians are actually helping pioneer a lot of this work, which not only benefits animals, but likely lead to new approaches to human diseases.”

Jim Poulin/Phoenix Business Journal

Left, Lab Processing Tech Shunique Connors and Director of Operations Christian Beaudry work with stem cells at the Celebration Stem Cell Center in Gilbert