Adipose Derived Cellular Therapies–Arthroscopic Approaches

Abstract As biologic treatments for a variety of medical conditions become more commonly utilized, the utilization of autologous tissues for orthopaedic conditions has increased. In particular, human adipose derived mesenchymal stem/stromal cell (ADSC) therapies have become increasingly popular over the past decade. The ability to utilize a patient's own homologous tissue, with minimal manipulation, and improve the biologic environment of the diseased tissue, has the potential to dramatically improve the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of patients. ADSCs are readily harvested from several easily accessible patient sites, including the subcutaneous tissue via simple lipoaspiration, as well as the infrapatellar fat pad via standard arthroscopic techniques. Moving forward, it remains paramount to continue to study ADSCs as a biologic therapeutic, better understand how to safely process this tissue once harvested, and determine which patient/pathology is best suited for injection or implantation.