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Fat Cells Used in Breakthrough Surgery to Create Bone for Injured Girl's Skull

GIESSEN, Germany, December 21, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Despite the persistent claims of some researchers, adult stem cells continue to prove their ability to produce a vast array of new tissue types. In the latest news, a 7-year-old German girl with severe damage to her skull from a fall, has been treated with stem cells derived from her own fat cells. Dr. Hans-Peter Howaldt of the Justus-Liebig-University Medical School in Giessen, Germany had attempted to repair the 19 square inches of damaged bone with grafts but the surgery was not successful. "Chronic infection resulted in an unstable skull with marked bony defects," he said in a summary of the case.

Two years after the initial injury, the doctors tried again, this time with the addition of stem cells obtained from the girl's fat cells. The bone recovered from the girl's pelvis was milled into chips about .1 inches long and placed in missing areas of the skull. The bone chips appeared to direct the stem cells to make bone, Dr. Howaldt said. "I cannot prove that our success comes from the stem cells alone," he told the Associated Press, "but the combination of the two things simply worked." The girl's head is now smooth to the touch and is covered with thin but solid bone.

Stem cells derived from a patient's own tissue, from cord blood, bone marrow, blood or fat cells are being used in experiments with animals and human beings to treat many diseases and injuries. This latest result is being called a breakthrough by others working in the field. Dr. Roy C. Ogle of the University of Virginia, an expert in skull reconstructive surgery who is studying the possibility of growing bone from fat stem cells called the treatment "a landmark." Most research of this kind has been done with animals and Ogle thinks this is the first time adult stem cells have been placed so close to the brain in a human being without damage.

A summary of the experiment in the December issue of the Journal of Cranio-Maxillofacial Surgery, said, "The CT-scans showed new bone formation and near complete calvarial (skull bone) continuity three months after the reconstruction."

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