Horse Treatment Tried on Humans

The treatment was first used on injured racehorses. Veterinarians had injected the animals with their own stem cells in an attempt to heal inflamed tendons.

If it works on injured racehorses, why not try it on humans? Tendons are notoriously difficult to treat as they have a poor blood supply. The horses had appeared to benefit from the injections of their own stem cells and now two studies, one in Korea and another in Great Britain, are testing the treatment on humans.

In one trial doctors at Seoul National University Hospital in South Korea are giving patients suffering from tennis elbow injections of up to ten million stem cells into the damaged tendon. Tennis elbow is triggered by overuse of the muscles and tendons of the forearm, near the elbow joint. As many as one in three people are believed to experience tennis elbow at some point, though it is more common in those over age 40.

In London, in a pilot study at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital involving ten patients, stem cells are being taken from each patient and then grown in a laboratory for a month before being injected into their damaged Achilles tendons. According to Roger Dobson, writing for the Daily Mail, early-stage laboratory studies, as well as reports from treating racehorses, have shown that, over several weeks, the stem cells encourage the growth of new tendon tissue and reduce scar tissue.