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Knee osteoarthritis, a chronic joint disease characterized by degeneration and destruction of articular cartilage and osteophytes, has always been a disease of the elderly in popular perception. Many older people with leg and foot discomfort will say they have knee osteoarthritis.
However, in recent years, knee osteoarthritis is gradually becoming younger. A “Tenth Five-Year” research program on knee osteoarthritis shows that the national prevalence of primary knee osteoarthritis in people over 40 years old is 46.3%, 41.6% in men and 50.4% in women, and the prevalence in people in their 60s is double that of people in their 40s.
Knee osteoarthritis, also known as osteoarthritis and degenerative joint disease, is a common chronic and progressive disease. Its pathology is characterized by degeneration and destruction of articular cartilage, sclerosis of subchondral bone, reactive hyperplasia of joint margins and subchondral bone, and formation of bone redundancy.
Stage 1:
Red, swollen and painful knees, pain when going up and down stairs, pain and discomfort in the knees when sitting up and standing, morning stiffness, etc. If the weather is bad, the knees are too painful to lift, and you often wake up at night with pain.
Stage 2:
With the growth of the disease time, it is easy to have complications without timely control, suffering from knee synovitis, ligament damage, meniscus damage, etc., the function of the whole knee is seriously impaired.
Stage 3:
The most serious consequence of knee arthritis is deformity of the knee joint, which finally leads to disability.、
Current conventional treatment modalities are:
1.Conservative treatment, including medication, injection therapy and traditional Chinese medicine;
2. Surgical treatments, including knee arthritis cleanup surgery, knee replacement and other methods, which alleviate the symptoms of knee arthritis to a certain extent, however, do not cure the knee joint injury disease fundamentally.
Therefore, scientists have been researching methods to completely cure knee arthritis injury.
Stem cell therapy has become a popular research direction for knee joint repair and regeneration. Stem cells have self-replicating ability and multidirectional differentiation potential. Under certain conditions, it can be differentiated into a variety of functional cells with the function of regenerating various tissues and organs, which is called “universal cell” in the medical field.
Stem cell knee therapy is mainly used to inject cartilage regeneration cells directly into the knee joint injury through joint cavity injection, mainly used for the treatment of knee arthritis caused by degenerative or recurrent traumatic injury, and remodeling of damaged knee joints.
The paracrine effect of stem cells is the main way to promote cartilage repair. It is found that stem cells can secrete a variety of nutrient factors to participate in the paracrine process, and nourish cartilage by activating the cellular and vascular neonatal pathway, and play its function of repairing damaged bone and cartilage tissue.
1.Inhibit inflammatory responseThe occurrence and development of knee osteoarthritis are closely related to inflammatory response. Stem cells can reduce inflammation by secreting many kinds of anti-inflammatory factors (e.g., IL-10, TGF-β, PGE2, etc.), and by inhibiting the signaling pathway of TNF, IL-17, thus alleviating the pain and articular cartilage damage caused by inflammatory response.
2. Promote cartilage regenerationResearch has found that stem cells can migrate to damaged soft tissues by using the homing effect, and then differentiate into chondrocytes to repair and regenerate articular cartilage, thus improving joint function.
3.Regulate immune functionStem cells can participate in the regulation of T-cell-related immune response, further inhibit the inflammatory response associated with knee osteoarthritis, thereby slowing down the progression of osteoarthritis of the knee.
4. Improve the mechanical properties of tissuesStem cells injected into the joint cavity can increase the strength and stability of damaged tissues, improve the mechanical properties of tissues, and reduce the risk of re-injury.
Relevant studies have shown that umbilical cord MSCs implanted into joints can form hyaline cartilage and form bone tissue under the cartilage. Umbilical cord MSC transplantation for osteoarthritis of the knee reduces joint pain and improves joint function more rapidly, significantly and permanently than sodium hyaluronate, and the efficacy of four injections is better than two injections.
