Abstract

Regenerative medicine based on stem cell ability to potentially repair injured tissues is a promising treatment for many orthopaedic problems. Adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ASCs) have multi-lineage differentiating ability, thus they are useful for treatment of bone diseases or skeletal lesions. One of the major limitations of ASCs is represented by the necessity to be isolated and expanded through in vitro culture, thus a strong interest was generated by the adipose stromal vascular fraction (SVF), the non-cultured fraction of ASCs. In order to improve bone regeneration, different scaffolds have been generated. Excellent results were recently achieved by the usage of SmartBone®, a xenohybrid bone scaffold commercially available, initially developed as bone substitute for reconstructive surgeries in presence of bone losses.