Stem Cell Therapy Vs Spinal Fusion – Which Is Better?
Stem cell therapy has gained attention worldwide for its therapeutic effects and capability to prevent the need for surgery for orthopedic-related conditions. It is a type of regenerative medicine that utilizes the healthy stem cells from your body or a donor’s body to promote tissue repair and healing. The stem cells reach the specific injured tissues and differentiate into specialized cells that comprise the target tissue to promote recovery.
The origin or cause of spine pain is often difficult to identify, except in cases of accidents, which lead to inappropriate treatments and unnecessary complications. When traditional therapies like physiotherapy and medications fail to provide relief, orthopedic doctors suggest surgery as the only option.
Both stem cell therapy and spinal fusion surgery are used for treating spinal damage and have their own sets of pros and cons. This article is a comparative guide to help you figure out the ideal treatment for your spine condition.
Table of Contents:
- Spinal Fusion Surgery – An Overview
- Advantages of Spinal Fusion Surgery
- Risks and Complications of Spinal Fusion
- Stem Cell Therapy – An Overview
- How Does Stem Cell Therapy Help Manage Back Pain?
- Advantages of Stem Cell Treatment in Spinal Damage
- Risks Associated With Stem Cell Therapy
- Can stem cell therapy prevent the need for Spinal Fusion Surgery?
- Is Stem Cell Treatment The Right Choice For Me?
- Premier Stem Cell Center In Mexico
Spinal Fusion Surgery – An Overview
Spinal fusion surgery is a surgical procedure done to join two or more vertebrae in the spine to improve spinal stability and relieve pain. Orthopedic surgeons recommend spinal fusion when there is a fracture or injury in the spine bone, Spondylolisthesis, abnormal curvatures, or unstable spine due to a tumor or infection. Among all the reasons, Spondylolisthesis is very common, for which spinal fusion surgery is necessary. It is a critical condition where one vertebra slips out of place on top of another vertebra. It usually happens in the lower back, resulting in chronic back pain, sensory loss, and numbness.
In spinal fusion, the surgeon makes an incision in the spine region and uses bone grafts to link two or more vertebrae so that they combine and heal into a single bone. The surgery aims to restore spine stability and relieve pain during motion. It eliminates motion between two or more vertebrae and prevents stretching of surrounding nerves, ligaments, and muscles.
Advantages Of Spinal Fusion Surgery
Although spinal fusion is a complicated procedure, it offers distinct benefits to patients suffering from spine conditions and helps improve their quality of life.
- The surgery is intended to improve stability in the spine by locking motion between the adjacent affected bones or vertebrae. It ensures spinal flexibility with a comfortable range of motion among the unaffected vertebrae, thus allowing the spine to carry out various physical activities.
- Spinal fusion effectively reshapes the spine’s abnormal curvature when it curves sideways. It can help correct spinal deformities caused by conditions like scoliosis.
- The surgery helps deal with spinal weakness and instability resulting from severe spine arthritis due to excessive motion between two bones.
Read Also: Is Stem Cell Therapy A Cure For Neurodegenerative Diseases?
Risks and Complications of Spinal Fusion
Spinal fusion has several risks and complications during the procedure and post-recovery. The complications range from minor issues that can be quickly resolved to severe ones requiring necessary interventions.
- Spinal infusion poses the risk of infection post-operation, leading to pain, swelling, and excessive drainage at the surgical site.
- Nerve damage during surgery is widespread, and this can result in pain, numbness, loss of sensation, and weakness in the lower back and legs.
- Other possible complications post-surgery include poor wound healing, blood clots, and pain at the grafting site.
- After the surgery, patients can experience complications, such as non-union of the fused vertebrae, which results in persistent pain in the back, leg, and foot.
Stem Cell Therapy – An Overview
Stem cells are undifferentiated immature cells found in the human body that can transform into a specific cell type and aid in tissue regeneration. Stem cell treatment for back pain promotes recovery from spinal damage caused by herniated or degenerative discs, sports injuries, accidents, etc.
The stem cell therapy process starts with stem cell harvesting either from the patient’s bone marrow or the donor’s. The harvested stem cells are concentrated in a clinical laboratory to prepare for injection, which is then introduced into the patient’s body. Stem cells can be injected intravenously or directly into the degenerate disc to start the healing process.
How Does Stem Cell Therapy Help Manage Back Pain?
The newly infused stem cells reach the target site and rapidly self-divide and self-renew into cartilage cells to replace the damaged tissues in the spinal disc. They release growth factors and promote tissue regeneration, allowing the damaged vertebrae to heal. Mesenchymal stem cell therapy using human umbilical cord tissue-derived stem cells facilitates the formation of new blood vessels. It modulates a healthy surrounding cellular environment, enhancing the innate healing process.
Stem cells possess immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory properties, which alleviate pain and inflammation. Over a few months, stem cell therapy completely repairs the damaged tissues, significantly improving spine stability and reducing pain.
Read Also: Stem Cell Basics: What They Are And How Do They Work
Advantages of Stem Cell Treatment in Spinal Damage
Multiple research and clinical studies show that stem cell interventions are effective for back pain and spinal cord injury are effective. Although this area of medical science is continuously being studied, the research results have been promising so far. The key benefits of stem cell therapy are as follows:
- Stem cell administration is minimally invasive and causes minimum pain and discomfort. Unlike spinal fusion, no incision or cut is required to inject the stem cells into the injured site. It is done either intravenously or through spinal injections.
- There is minimal chance of complications or side effects for stem cell therapy compared to traditional surgeries or spinal fusion.
- The time required to complete stem cell therapy is much shorter than surgeries and is done without general anesthesia.
- Stem cell therapy requires minimal recovery time, as patients can return home the same day. It also saves the costs of lengthy hospital stays and post-operative medications.
- Stem cell therapy promotes the natural healing of damaged tissues in the spinal cord and doesn’t take the support of artificial implants to stabilize the spine. Hence, it is safer and less complicated than spinal fusion.
Risks Associated With Stem Cell Therapy
Some risks exist despite the potential advantages of stem cell treatment for back pain and spinal damage.
- Like any other medical treatment, stem cell therapy can have minor and short-term side effects, such as allergies or infections.
- Patients might experience mild pain, swelling, redness, or rash at the injection site.
- There is a chance of cell rejection by the patient’s immune system. However, mesenchymal stem cells collected from human umbilical cord tissue-derived stem cells can help avoid this risk because these are new cells collected after healthy births and have zero risk of cell rejection.
- Since stem cells can differentiate and multiply infinitely to form various cell types, it can lead to tumor formation.
Can Stem Cell Therapy Prevent the Need for Spinal Fusion Surgery?
Spinal fusion has been the most common treatment for degenerated discs, spinal cord injuries, and disc-related pain. The surgery relieves back pain by restricting motion in the affected vertebrae. However, current evidence in stem cell research suggests that it could create a paradigm shift in treating disc-related pain, providing necessary cellular support for tissue regeneration.
Stem cell therapy promotes back pain recovery by changing the disc environment with healthy cells. Statistics show that stem cells can significantly elevate the disc height between vertebrae and enhance spine stability. With more and more patients seeking less invasive, safe, and uncomplicated treatment procedures, stem cell therapy might serve as the best alternative to spinal fusion surgery, which is invasive, complicated, and has potential side effects.
Is Stem Cell Treatment The Right Choice For Me?
If you are experiencing persistent back pain with no signs of improvement after physiotherapy and medications, stem cell therapy is your probable solution. Back pain or spinal damage caused by degenerative disc disease, accidents, or sports-related injury can be treated using mesenchymal stem cells from human umbilical cord tissue. It can lead to sustainable relief from pain. The injected stem cells stimulate the body’s natural healing power and regenerate healthier and new tissues in the injured discs to eliminate pain.
Unfortunately, not all patients with spinal cord injury are suitable for stem cell therapy. The patient’s age, past medical conditions, and pre-existing diseases are critical factors in qualifying for treatment.
Premier Stem Cell Center In Mexico
Life Altering Stem Cell Therapy Institute offers safe and innovative therapies focusing on an integrated and patient-centered recovery approach. Our accredited facility adheres to international medical standards. Its team of highly qualified and certified stem cell specialists ensures that every patient has a comfortable stem cell therapy experience.
In addition to healing back pain, stem cell therapy is also a helpful treatment option for autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular problems, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders, age-induced health problems, and many more.
Book a consultation today to learn more about stem cell therapy, the procedure, and how it may help you treat your condition.
Advanced Spinal Cord Injury Treatment With Stem Cell Therapy
Spinal cord injuries (SCI) inflict devastation, leading individuals grappling with a lifetime of challenges. It is a severe condition that can result in neurological impairments and lifelong disability. Damage to the spinal cord imposes extensive physical, psychological, and financial burdens on the patients and their families.
Although there are some existing treatments, most fall short of permanent recovery. The limitations in the traditional treatment approaches have prompted the urgent need for innovative therapeutic solutions, like stem cell treatment. It has emerged as a promising treatment facilitating the regeneration and healing of damaged neural tissues following spinal cord injuries.
This article comprehensively discusses the potential of stem cell therapy for spinal cord injuries. It provides an in-depth explanation of the unique advantages and effective outcomes of cell-based therapy.
Spinal Cord Injury – Overview
Spinal cord injury is a debilitating neurological condition that imposes significant health challenges or impairments such as immobility, autonomic dysfunction, and constant pain. In most cases, the primary damage to the spinal cord is initiated by singular traumatic events like car accidents or sports injuries, causing tears, lacerations, or compression of the spinal cord. As a result of this initial damage, a series of secondary injury mechanisms triggers, leading to ischemic strokes, inflammation, and substantial tissue loss.
Difficulty in walking, inability to move arms or legs, lack of control of bladder or bowel movements, loss of fertility, inflated reflex actions, or seizures, weakness of muscles, loss of sensations, pain in back and neck, and headache are the common symptoms that most patients experience over time after the injury.
Read Also: Stem Cell Therapy: Ischemic Stroke Recovery Breakthrough
Types of Spinal Cord Damages
Navigating the complexities of a devastating condition like spinal cord injury and understanding its different types is helpful for doctors to identify the exact cause and plan a personalized stem cell treatment. Here’s a breakdown of the two major types of SCIs.
Complete Spinal Cord Injury – In this type, the spinal cord is completely damaged, resulting in loss of communication between the brain and the part of the body below the injury. Complete SCI often results in paralysis and loss of sensation below the injury level. However, with advancements in medical treatments like stem cell therapy, it is now possible to regain mobility and cell communication.
Partial Spinal Cord Injury – The spinal cord is partially damaged or affected, and the loss of function and body mobility depends on the severity and location of the injury. In this case, some communication remains between the brain and the part of the body below the injury.
Promise Of Stem Cell Therapy To Treat Spinal Cord Injury
Stem cell therapy has revolutionized spinal cord injury treatment, offering a ray of hope and optimism to those suffering from this chronic condition. The past decade has witnessed breakthrough moments in the field of SCI treatment with the successful trials and demonstration of stem cell therapy’s feasibility and long-term safety.
Stem cell intervention is a trailblazing achievement, laying the foundation for further medical research and advancements, focusing on enhancing the therapeutic potential of this promising treatment. The regenerative properties of stem cells lead to neural regeneration and reducing lesions, improving locomotion and lowering inflammation.
The administration of stem cells after spinal cord injury exerts neuroprotective effects and regulates brain-derived neurotrophic factors in the spinal cord. Stem cell treatment for spinal cord injury focuses on replacing the damaged cells and promoting axonal growth. After the stem cells are introduced into the body, they migrate to the injured site to start the repair process. These newly introduced stem cells stimulate angiogenesis ( growth of blood vessels) and release trophic factors to prevent further neuronal degeneration in the affected areas in the spinal cord.
Renowned stem cell specialists at Life Altering Stem Cell Therapy Institute treat spinal cord injury with stem cells within six months of injuries, minimizing the risk of inflammation and loss of motor and sensory functions. Being Mexico’s regenerative medicine center, our institute facilitates state-of-the-art treatment facilities and innovative stem cell technologies to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of the treatments.
Advantages of Stem Cell Therapy For Spinal Cord Damage
Several types of stem cells are used in the SCI treatment, including induced pluripotent stem cells and mesenchymal stem cells derived from bone marrow, adipose tissue, or the umbilical cord. Stem cells isolated from the human umbilical cord tissues are proven to be highly effective in SCI treatment.
- They form healthy neural cells with high differentiation potential, replacing lost neurons and promoting remyelination of damaged axons.
- The immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory properties of stem cells modulate the immune system response and reduce pain in the back.
- By promoting axonal growth and regeneration, stem cell therapy aids functional recovery and restores locomotion.
- Using the human umbilical cord tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells ensures no chance of cell rejection.
- Stem cell therapy is a minimally invasive procedure with no complications or side effects.
- The duration of the treatment, as well as the recovery period, is shorter compared to conventional treatment approaches.
Changes Noticed In Patients After Stem Cell Treatment
The advancement of cell-based therapy for spinal cord injuries has dramatically altered the perception that individuals suffering from such injuries are destined to live a bedridden life. Stem cell treatment for spinal cord injury has significantly enhanced the patient’s quality of life.
- Improved physical mobility
- Improvement in walking and sitting
- Increased control of bladder and bowel movements
- Better body balance while standing and sitting
- Improved trunk control (upper body)
- Improved libido and fertility
- Reduced headache
- Decreased pain in the back and neck
- Reduced spasms and signs of shock
- Improved sensation
Why Choose Life Altering Stem Cell Therapy Institute For Spinal Cord Injury Treatment
Mexico is the leading destination for stem cell therapy because of its advanced treatment approaches, highly qualified medical professionals, and exceptional medical infrastructure. If you are looking for a trusted best stem cell clinic in Mexico, Life Altering Stem Cell Therapy Institute is a name you can always count on.
We have an excellent track record of successful therapies given to patients to recover from spinal cord injuries. We have a well-versed medical team comprising top physicians, stem cell specialists, and medical coordinators. They keep themselves updated with the latest medical news, clinical trials, and research on stem cells and their applications in SCI treatment. With highly advanced treatment solutions and class-apart clinic facilities, the Life Altering Stem Cell Therapy Institute offers renewed hope for enhanced quality of life and functional recovery for individuals with SCI.
Conclusion
In summary, stem cell treatment offers an innovative approach to spinal cord injury treatment, addressing its various aspects and promoting significant motor functional recovery. With more ongoing research and progress in regenerative medicine, the new and complete therapeutic potential of cell-based treatment for spinal cord injuries will soon be discovered.
Most importantly, the use of stem cells in SCI aims to address the challenges faced by patients by revolutionizing damaged tissue repair and regeneration in the spinal cord. Get stem cell treatment in Mexico for spinal cord injury at our institute to significantly impact your life and lead a healthier and pain-free future.