Amy Norton HealthDay Reporter Posted: Thursday, September 26, 2013, 7:00 PM

THURSDAY, Sept. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Using people's own stem cells from their body fat could aid in plastic surgery procedures such as post-cancer breast reconstruction, a small, preliminary study suggests.

The study, published in the Sept. 28 issue of The Lancet, looked at whether stem cells might improve the current technique of "lipofilling" -- where fat is removed via liposuction from one part of the body, purified, then injected into another area of the body.

Doctors use lipofilling in cosmetic procedures to create smoother skin or fuller lips. But it also has a range of medical uses. Fat injections can help reshape the breasts in women having reconstruction after breast cancer surgery. They can also be used in correcting facial deformities caused by an injury or congenital defect, or helping certain burn injuries heal.

The problem is that transferred fat often doesn't last, explained lead researcher Dr. Stig-Frederik Kolle.

"It's unpredictable," said Kolle, of the plastic surgery department at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark. "And you often have to repeat the procedure to get a [satisfactory] result."

So Kolle's team tested a different approach: Take stem cells from people's body fat and use them to "enrich" the fat tissue being transplanted from one body area to another. Stem cells are primitive cells that develop into more mature ones.

The researchers recruited 10 healthy volunteers who underwent liposuction to have fat taken from the abdomen. The fat was then purified and injected into the volunteers' upper arms. In one arm, the fat transplant was enriched with stem cells; the other arm received a traditional transplant.

After about four months, the researchers took MRI images of the fat transplants, then removed them. It turned out that the stem cell-enriched transplants had retained about 81 percent of their initial volume, on average -- compared with only 16 percent among the stem cell-free transplants.

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Stem Cells From Fat Might Improve Plastic Surgery

Scientists are reporting breast reconstruction surgery may be improved by adding stem cells and fat to the procedure.

A new study published Sept. 26 in The Lancet found the technique was superior to typical reconstruction surgeries that use only fat grafts harvested from elsewhere in the body.

More than 232,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. Women who undergo surgical removal of their breasts, or mastectomy, to treat their cancer may undergo breast reconstruction.

Options include getting breast implants or taking skin, muscle and fat from elsewhere in the body to help reconstruct the breast. According to the study's authors, the majority of board-certified plastic surgeons in the U.S. opt for this technique which is called lipofilling or autologous fat grafting.

But all the fat doesn't always take in its new location, they added, with rates of the percentage of transferred fat not surviving as high as 80 percent according to some studies, which may require additional grafting.

That's where stem cells may help.

Researchers recruited 10 healthy volunteers to compare tissue survival rates from stem-cell enriched fat grafts to traditional grafting techniques. All 10 subjects underwent liposuction from one side of their abdomen to collect fat. Then the scientists prepared two grafts for each person: one enriched with stem cells derived from fat, the other without. Both were injected in their upper arms. Scientists used MRI scans to measure the volume of fat from the graft immediately after the transplant and just before the grafts were removed after four months.

Stem-cell treated grafts retained significantly more fat volume than the non-enriched ones, with higher amounts of tissue and newly formed connective tissue reported. Once the grafts were removed, the scientists found significantly less tissue death, or necrosis, in the stem cell group.

The researchers say their findings may not only help breast reconstruction, but other graft plastic surgery procedures as well.

"Our promising results suggest that stem-cell enriched fat grafting might prove to be an attractive alternative to major tissue augmentation, such as breast reconstruction after cancer...or major tissue flap surgery, with fewer side effects and more satisfying cosmetic results", study author Dr Stig-Frederik Trojahn Kolle, a researcher at Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark, wrote in the study.

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Stem cells may prevent tissue rejection in breast reconstruction surgery

A new experimental approach to treating a type of brain cancer has been developed by researchers.

Medulloblastoma targets cancer stem cells - critical for maintaining tumour growth - and halts their ability to proliferate by inhibiting enzymes essential for tumour progression.

The process destroys the cancer cells' ability to grow and divide, paving the way for a new type of treatment for patients with this disease.

The research team, led by Robert Wechsler-Reya Ph.D. at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, discovered that the medulloblastoma cancer cells responsible for tumour growth and progression (tumor-propagating cellsTPCs) divide more quickly than normal cells.

Correspondingly, they have higher levels of certain enzymes that regulate the cell cycle. By using small-molecule inhibitors to stop the action of these enzymes, the researchers were able to block the growth of tumour cells from mice as well as humans.

"One tumour can have many different types of cells in it, and they can grow at different rates. By targeting fast-growing TPCs with cell-cycle inhibitors, we have developed a new route to assault medulloblastoma... and have opened the window to preventing cancer recurrence," said Wechsler-Reya.

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For their research, the scientists tested the effectiveness of cell-cycle inhibitors in a specific type of brain cancer called Sonic Hedgehog (SHH)-associated medulloblastoma.

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New Brain Cancer Treatment Targets Stem Cells And Tackles Tumour Growth

Newswise (TORONTO, Canada Sept. 26, 2013) Stem cell scientists have moved one step closer to producing blood-forming stem cells in a Petri dish by identifying a key regulator controlling their formation in the early embryo, shows research published online today in Cell.

The work was reported by Dr. Gordon Keller, Director of the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, and Senior Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, both at University Health Network. Dr. Keller is also Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto and holds a Canada Research Chair in stem cell biology.

Using mouse models to study the process of blood cell development, Dr. Keller and his team demonstrated that the retinoic acid signalling pathway is required for formation of blood-forming stem cells. Retinoic acid is produced from vitamin A and is essential for many areas of human growth and development.

When the researchers genetically disrupted the pathway that produces retinoic acid in mice, no blood-forming stem cells were produced. When they activated the pathway at the precise stage when stem cells develop, they observed a large increase in the number of blood-forming stem cells.

Understanding how different cells and tissues are made in the embryo provides important clues for producing human cell types from pluripotent stem cells in a Petri dish, says Dr. Keller. Pluripotent stem cells are master stem cells that are able to generate many different cell types including heart, blood, pancreas and liver. To make a specific cell type from pluripotent stem cells, one must direct them down the appropriate developmental path in the Petri dish.

Dr. Keller adds: Our findings have identified a critical regulator for directing pluripotent stem cells to make blood-forming stem cells, bringing us one step closer to our goal of developing a new and unlimited source of these stem cells for transplantation for the treatment of different blood cell diseases.

This research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the U.S.-based National Institutes of Health. Dr. Kellers research is also supported by the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, The Toronto General & Western Hospital Foundation, and The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation.

About McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine The McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine was founded by Rob and Cheryl McEwen in 2003 and opened its doors in 2006. The McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine, part of Toronto-based University Health Network, is a world leading centre for stem cell research, facilitating collaboration between renowned scientists from 5 major hospitals in Toronto, the University of Toronto and around the world. Supported by philanthropic contributions and research grants, McEwen Centre scientists strive to introduce novel regenerative therapies for debilitating and life threatening illnesses including heart disease, spinal cord injury, diabetes, diseases of the blood, liver and arthritis. http://www.mcewencentre.com

About University Health Network University Health Network includes Toronto General and Toronto Western Hospitals, Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and Toronto Rehabilitation Institute. The scope of research and complexity of cases at University Health Network has made it a national and international source for discovery, education and patient care. It has the largest hospital-based research program in Canada, with major research in cardiology, transplantation, neurosciences, oncology, surgical innovation, infectious diseases, genomic medicine and rehabilitation medicine. University Health Network is a research hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto. http://www.uhn.ca

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Stem Cell Scientists Identify Key Regulator Controlling Formation of Blood-Forming Stem Cells