Enhancement of Anterior Cruciate ligament Reconstruction using Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Abstract

One of the most common injuries in orthopaedic field is anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear, which accounts for more than 50% of all knee injuries and has an estimated incidence rate of 60.9 per 100,000 persons. Untreated ACL injuries may lead to postural instability, increase in meniscal injury rates, and osteoarthritis that develops more gradually. The gold standard treatment for ACL tears is arthroscopic reconstruction using an autograft or allograft tendon. However, graft failure during an ACL reconstruction (ACLR) can considerably delay recovery and lead to revision ACLR operation that has worse prognosis. A number of regenerative techniques, including stem cells, biomaterials, and bioactive compounds, have been researched and shown to be efficient. The injection of stem cells as biological augmentation has been suggested as a method to enhance the results of ACLR. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) in particular can differentiate into a number of terminally differentiated progenitors that can be used to create mesenchymal-derived tissues and to speed up the healing process by influence the microenvironment to promote angiogenesis, promote regeneration, and prevent the formation of scar tissue. The goal of this study is to outline the present use of stem cells as an augmentation in ACLR.