Help for Hounds

Among the more promising human trials is one conducted last year in Japan with cancer patients who have had breast reconstruction after lumpectomies. The data from that and other studies in Europe is expected by the end of this year. For this fat grafting procedure, stem cells extracted from fat, usually from the abdomen, are mixed with regular fat and then injected into the area of the breast that needs filling out. (Ordinary fat grafts are often reabsorbed by the body or die before they can develop a viable blood supply.)

Cytori Therapeutics, a regenerative medicine products company in San Diego, has already initiated a clinical trial in Europe testing stem cells derived from fat in humans for patients suffering from an inadequate supply of blood to the heart, or chronic myocardial ischemia, and the company is about to begin trials in heart attack patients as well as for breast reconstruction. Researchers at Cytori have invented a device that allows physicians to take fat from human patients at their bedside, remove the stem cells from the fat, and treat patients with those cells in real time. The device has already been approved for use in Europe beginning in 2008. Cytori chief financial officer Mark Saad says the company hopes to win approval for the device in the United States within the next few years. In the meantime, American pet owners will have yet another option in the growing array of high-tech health treatments for pets.

© 2007