Injuries of equine tendon and ligaments, treatment and prevention
Tendons and ligament injuries in horses are a major problem, often demanding long periods of rest and sometimes retirement from the sport activity [7]. The site of the lesion and the use of the horse are the main concerns in assessing the prognosis. Throughout the decades a number of possible therapies has been experimented yet none of them has ever turned out to be able to ensure a complete restoration of the anatomical and functional integrity of the injured tissue. In the past, effort has been put to improve the quality of the healing process of these tissues and the aim was to obtain a scar tissue enough strong and elastic to allow somehow the reintroduction to activity. Nowadays scientific research has brought to light the possibility to work on healing processes not in the sense of reparation but of regeneration. Regenerative medicine principles are based that healing processes cannot just be improved in a quality or timing side, yet they can be led to produce matrix tissue with the help of autologous blood derivatives or stem cells [5]. The regenerative properties of tissues are studied more. The purpose is understanding to what point the regeneration can be led either with the implantation of stem cells or with the application of sources of growth factors to boost the tissue’s own capability to regenerate. In this sense, platelets concentrates have been in the last decades addressed as possible proper solutions to the problem, being a substantial source of growth factors potentially boosting the reparative process and improving the quality of the heal [3]. The same can be said about the use of stem cells derived from autologous adipose tissue of the patient. Nevertheless, there is still need clinical trials in different groups of animals. You can direct the research on the study of a minimum number of input platelets / stem cells, the terms and conditions for the recovery of horses, the overall efficiency of the methods, etc. In our research, we focused on the overall efficiency of the methods, timing and regeneration quality of tendons and ligaments at maximum identical conditions, recovery animals. In the equine medicine is very important clinical trials because using these methods on laboratory animals doesn’t take into account the load experienced by ligaments and tendons, such as racing, jumping or dressage horse. This fact makes complicates and slows the explore of the various methods of equine tendon and ligaments treatments. The application of treatments on large numbers of horses could help to outline the guidelines for the effective and actual use of blood derivatives and stem cells. This article describes several different treatment regimens used in our own research, also some recommendation for the preparation and use of autologous blood products (PRP) and stem cells derived from adipose tissue.