REGENERATIVE MEDICINE in field of plastic surgery

Regenerative medicine is the science of using adipose-derived stem cells harvested from fat to regenerate cells and tissues in the human body.

What is regenerative medicine?

Regenerative medicine is the science of replacing, engineering or regenerating human cells, tissues or organs to restore normal form and function. This generally encompasses the use of cells, tissues, drugs, synthetic biomaterials and tools to help patients heal more effectively from trauma, cancer therapy, other disease processes and birth anomalies. Regenerative medicine therapies can have aims of both healing damaged tissues and stimulating new tissue formation.

While many clinicians and scientists across all the fields of medicine have been involved in regenerative medicine research and clinical advances over the last two decades, plastic surgeons have been especially instrumental in practicing new therapies into the clinical arena and having a leadership role in new scientific discoveries.

• Burn care

Burn care: Plastic surgeons have been the pioneers in the use of protein scaffolds to produce the dermal layer, or innermost layer of the skin, following burn injury resulting in better healing.

• Wound care

Wound care: Complex wounds are not only difficult to heal, they also represent a major focus for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine strategies. Skin substitutes, comprised of living cells grown in a laboratory in a controlled environment, are used to heal these types of wounds. Additionally, growth factors are being used for improving wound healing. One of the most significant breakthroughs in regenerative therapy for wound healing has been the use of negative pressure therapy. Discovered by a plastic surgeon, these devices use negative pressure to eradicated infectious load and stimulate wound healing.

• stem cell therapy

A significant advancement in the surgical regenerative medicine has been the development and rectification of techniques to transfer fat tissue in a minimally invasive manner. This stimulates the regeneration of fat tissue in other parts of the body, using a patient’s own extracted fat tissue. This technique is revolutionizing many reconstructive procedures, including breast augmentation, buttock augmentation, removal of static wrinkles. Importantly, fat tissue is an important source of adult mesenchymal stem cells. Discovered by plastic surgeons, adipose derived stem cells are delicately isolated from fat tissue and gives promising results for treating many disorders across the body.