Equine DSC Therapy of Musculoskeletal Conditions: an Ultrasonographic Evaluation

Abstract

Musculoskeletal diseases are among the most common disorders that affect horses, and current methods to treat these disorders can be invasive and dependent on the severity of the injury. The use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) may provide an effective and non-invasive method to treat equine musculoskeletal disorders. An experiment was conducted to analyze the safety of treating equine musculoskeletal disorders with an intra-articular injection of a novel stem cell product. To measure the safety of the product, the edema elicited by the injection of the product was measured using ultrasonographic images. These images were taken before the injection and seven and fourteen days after the injection. To measure edema at the three time points, three soft tissue measurements were taken for horses affected by tendonitis/desmitis and four measurements were taken for horses affected by osteoarthritis at each time point. Edema that the intra-articular injection of the stem cells may have elicited was resolved and no longer statistically significant within the first week after injection. The transient edema observed suggests that the intra-articular injection of the stem cell product is a safe option for treating equine musculoskeletal disorders.