A recent article in the journal Cell Transplantation offers new insights into how fat cells and stem cells are being used in tissue reconstruction and other plastic surgery procedures. Adipose-derived stem cells have been used in plastic and reconstructive surgical applications, and the growing interest in this area of research has resulted in the exploration of many novel research and clinical applications that utilize adipose tissue grafting and/or progenitor/stem cell-derived cell products obtained from this tissue source.
According to the researchers, "Progenitor, endothelial, and mesenchymal stem cells derived from adipose tissue could therefore not only be central to plastic and reconstructive surgery applications, but also become the focus of an array of therapeutic solutions for many disease conditions, such as those affecting bone, cartilage, muscle, liver, kidney, cardiac, neural, and the pancreas, expanding the possible indications and translational potential of tissue, cell-based, and regenerative medicine strategies."
The article states that while most investigative work has concentrated on fat as autologous tissue, because of its ideal characteristics as a soft tissue filler, which is also abundant, readily available, inexpensive, host compatible, and can easily and repeatedly be harvested. However, in recent years an increasing level of attention has been directed towards progenitor/stem cell components that are cotransplanted with the fat grafts.
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[Source: Cell Transplantation]
