Understanding Stem Cell Therapy for Chronic Wounds That Won't Heal
Giovanni Marfia, Stefania Elena Navone, Clara Di Vito, Nicola Ughi, Silvia Tabano, Monica Miozzo, Carlo Tremolada, Gianni Bolla, Chiara Crotti, Francesca Ingegnoli, Paolo Rampini, Laura Riboni, Roberta Gualtierotti, Rolando Campanella · Organogenesis · 2015
Your Body's Fat Tissue Contains Powerful Healing Cells
When a wound won't heal normally, it can become a chronic problem. This happens to millions of people, especially those with diabetes or autoimmune conditions. A 2015 scientific review explored how mesenchymal stem cells (regenerative cells that can become various tissue types) might offer new hope for treating these stubborn wounds. The research shows that fat tissue is one of the richest sources of these healing cells.
Why Some Wounds Get Stuck and Fail to Heal
Normal wound healing happens in stages: stopping the bleeding, fighting infection, growing new tissue, and remodeling. The review explains that chronic wounds get "stuck" in an ongoing inflammatory state. This constant inflammation prevents the body from moving forward through the healing stages. Conditions like diabetes and autoimmune diseases create this problematic environment. In the United States alone, wound care affects over five million people and costs around 20 billion dollars annually.
Stem Cells Work Through Four Healing Pathways
The researchers identified four key ways mesenchymal stem cells help wounds heal:
Structural repair: These cells can transform into the specific cell types needed to rebuild damaged skin tissue
Immune regulation: They calm excessive inflammation that keeps wounds from healing
Growth factor release: They produce natural chemicals that encourage new blood vessel formation and skin regrowth
Recruiting helper cells: They signal the body's own resident stem cells to come to the wound site
Fat-Derived Stem Cells Show Special Promise
The review highlights adipose-derived stem cells (stem cells from fat tissue) as particularly valuable for wound treatment. Fat tissue provides an abundant and easily accessible source of these regenerative cells. Unlike bone marrow collection, obtaining fat tissue is minimally invasive. These cells have shown the ability to support blood vessel healing and tissue regeneration in multiple studies reviewed by the authors.
Current Growth Factor Treatments Have Significant Limits
The review notes that existing treatments using growth factors have drawbacks. One FDA-approved option cannot be used for larger wounds or those needing extended treatment. The body also tends to break down or neutralize these applied growth factors before they can work effectively. A systematic review of clinical trials found many studies had design problems, making it difficult to confirm these treatments truly work. This creates an opening for cell-based approaches that may overcome these limitations.
Cell Therapy Represents a New Direction for Difficult Wounds
The researchers conclude that stem cell therapy offers a fundamentally different approach to chronic wound care. Rather than applying a single growth factor, cell-based treatments deliver living cells that continuously produce the multiple healing signals wounds need. The cells can respond to the wound environment and adapt their behavior accordingly. While this review examined the science behind these approaches, it points toward treatments like Lipogems® that use your own processed fat tissue to deliver these regenerative cells directly to problem areas.
This research supports the growing understanding that micro-fragmented adipose tissue (specially processed fat tissue from your own body) contains the pericytes (helper cells that support blood vessel healing) and mesenchymal stem cells needed to address wounds that resist conventional treatment. Using autologous tissue (your own tissue, not from a donor) eliminates concerns about rejection or disease transmission.
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Source: Marfia et al., Organogenesis, 2015.
Original Publication
Mesenchymal stem cells: potential for therapy and treatment of chronic non-healing skin wounds
Giovanni Marfia, Stefania Elena Navone, Clara Di Vito, Nicola Ughi, Silvia Tabano, Monica Miozzo, Carlo Tremolada, Gianni Bolla, Chiara Crotti, Francesca Ingegnoli, Paolo Rampini, Laura Riboni, Roberta Gualtierotti, Rolando Campanella · Organogenesis · 2015
Wound healing is a complex physiological process including overlapping phases (hemostatic/inflammatory, proliferating and remodeling phases). Every alteration in this mechanism might lead to pathological conditions of different medical relevance. Treatments for chronic non-healing wounds are expensive because reiterative treatments are needed. Regenerative medicine and in particular mesenchymal stem cells approach is emerging as new potential clinical application in wound healing. In the past decades, advance in the understanding of molecular mechanisms underlying wound healing process has led to extensive topical administration of growth factors as part of wound care. Currently, no definitive treatment is available and the research on optimal wound care depends upon the efficacy and cost-benefit of emerging therapies. Here we provide an overview on the novel approaches through stem cell therapy to improve cutaneous wound healing, with a focus on diabetic wounds and Systemic Sclerosis-associated ulcers, which are particularly challenging. Current and future treatment approaches are discussed with an emphasis on recent advances.