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Permalink Reply by Moocow on September 15, 2008 at 7:53pm

I've not only heard of it but my rider was actually thinking of using stem cell therapy on his now retired GP horse for a recurring high suspensory in jury (I believe that's what it was).
About a year and a bit ago the vet told us that the chances of the body taking on the stem cells was 50/50 and even then afterwards there was no guarantee that the procedure would be enough to bring the horse back to performance level. It's also expensive and it would take a good year+ for the horse to recover from the treatment and get back into a regular work schedule. In our case the horse was already 14 years old and so we didn't end up going through with it.
Just a couple months ago I heard from a different vet that the reason the chances of the therapy not working so well before was because they were taking stem cells from the dock whereas now they are taking them from the sternum. I guess the quality or the stage the stem cells were in was better in the sternum and the failure rate all of a sudden dropped to 6%. The doctor personally knew several horses who had had the stem cell therapy and all were doing extremely well.
It's a very interesting thing to look into and as technology comes along it seems to be quickly moving into a dependable new form of therapy for our horses. Hopefully it will soon become more affordable, too!

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Permalink Reply by Susan on October 22, 2008 at 11:14am

Hi Erin, I just came across this news from Australia.

Aust team to develop stem cell 'bank' for injured horses

October 22, 2008

Australian scientists are looking to develop a bank of embryo-derived stem cells, preserved for use when an individual horse is injured.

Such a bank would mean faster and less invasive treatment of horses with tendon, ligament and cartilage injuries. The stem cell treatment process currently takes three weeks. It involves the removal of bone marrow cells from the injured horse, which are then sent to a laboratory and grown into the required tissue cells.

Dr Paul Verma, from Melbourne's Monash Institute of Medical Research, is working with US company ViaGen Inc to develop equine embryonic stem cell lines, with the aim of creating a bank of genetically matched stem cells preserved for individual horses.

Injuries can range from minor inflammation to a complete rupture, which can result in permanent lameness and the end of a horse's competitive life. Once a horse has damaged a tendon or ligament, the risk of re-injury is very high.

Bone damage also varies in severity, with the most serious cases resulting in the loss of the injured horse.

Stem cells have the potential to reverse this damage. "We have developed techniques to derive stem cells from horse embryos, and, through a pilot study, we have successfully created a number of horse embryonic stem cell lines," Dr Verma said.

"The next step will be to look at using these stem cell lines to regenerate tendon, ligament, cartilage and bone cells. Once the stem cells can be coaxed into 'becoming' the appropriate tissue cells, they can be transplanted to replace the damaged tissue."

The natural source of therapeutic cells developed by Dr Verma will be recognised by a horse's immune system as its own; there will be no risk of horses rejecting the tissue generated from the stem cells.

Dr Irina Polejaeva, ViaGen's Chief Scientific Officer, said the risk of rejection will be overcome because the cells generated are genetically identical to the horse receiving treatment.

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