Home › Blog › Super Platelet Mix and Regenexx-SD

We’d like to introduce Regenexx-SD with super platelet mix.  Unlike our cultured stem cell treatment, this is a procedure where stem cells can be re-injected shortly after they are harvested.  One of the difficulties in offering a cultured stem cell therapy is the lag time between the marrow aspirate, culturing, testing, and re-injection-which can often take 6 weeks.  Many patients have requested a stem cell procedure that could be performed over 1-2 days, without big time lag.  Our problem has been how to offer a procedure like this without compromising stem cell yield.  The issue we have had with traditional BMAC (same day marrow draw procedures run in bedside centrifuges) is that they may have too few mesenchymal stem cells for many orthopedic applications. One way to increase stem cell number in a same day procedure is to ditch the bedside centrifuge and use a lab that can custom concentrate stem cells to higher numbers (click here to see a comparison between Regenexx-SD stem cell fraction numbers vs. a bedside centrifuge).  A second way is to supply growth factors to prompt the smaller number of cells to grow in the body to bigger numbers, essentially replicating what we do in the lab with culturing in the joint (in-vivo culturing).  To try and accomplish this, many clinics use bedside centrifuge concentrated PRP-(Platelet Rich Plasma) added to the stem cells or injected at the same time as the stem cells.  Not satisfied with just adding PRP to isolated bone marrow stem cells, we looked for better solutions.  Since nobody had ever compared different growth factor (platelet) mixes with human mesenchymal stem cells, we did that in 2009. We then repeated the experiment in 2010 with more samples. We compared PRP versus various platelet mixes and found a better way.  This is what we found:

The graph above plots the numbers of stem cells that grew with the various platelet concentrate types we tested, so the higher the bar, the better the result.  The big surprise in this data is the larger number of mesenchymal stem cells that consistently grew with what we now call a “Super Platelet Mix”.  Notice that this produced almost double the number of stem cells versus PRP (the usual platelet rich plasma used by many physicians).  That’s why we call it a “super platelet mix”.  So finally, we had our answer, here’s a method to get to a quicker turn around procedure that based on the lab data, wouldn’t compromise stem cell number. This is Regenexx-SD, an uncompromising stem cell procedure worthy of carrying the Regenexx name.

(Lab experiment with n=5 patient samples culturing mesenchymal stem cells and determining yield of cells).

Chris Centeno, MD is a specialist in regenerative medicine and the new field of Interventional Orthopedics. Centeno pioneered orthopedic stem cell procedures in 2005 and is responsible for a large amount of the published research on stem cell use for orthopedic applications. View Profile