Quality of Life of Elderly and Obese Animal Models with Severe Knee Osteoarthritis after a Single Injection of Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is a hazardous degenerative disease causing daily disability and great suffering for the world's population. The goals of OA treatment are alleviation of pain and recovery of function status. So far, several conservative care options (non-surgical) are available, but only provide temporary relief for the clinical symptoms of severe OA. When joint replacement surgery is required, older people tend to avoid surgical treatment, due to the risk of serious side effects. That causes great suffering and loss of quality of life. Currently, mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) therapy has been discussed as a treatment of OA. Here, we investigated a feasibility of MSC therapy as an option of a simple treatment for OA in the aged population. We transplanted an intra-articular injection of human MSC into the knee joint of an aged animal model, which carry natural severe OA, and monitored for pain, knee function. Their quality of life was evaluated via ARomDe scores. Our results demonstrated that those aged animals have good recovery of the knee and leg functions. Their daily activities and behavior well-being (walking, grooming, and social interaction) had increased. We conclude that single MSC injections have a good effect and provide a better quality of life in aged animal model with severe OA knee.