Non-surgical pain management for hip joint disease in veterinary medicine

The most common orthopaedic developmental disease in dogs is hip dysplasia. This condition results in coxofemoral laxity due to incongruity and lack of stabilisation of the joint by the soft tissues. Currently, there is no therapeutic plan to correct hip dysplasia without surgical intervention at a very early age. The goal of the non-surgical treatment is to relieve pain and stiffness and to increase the muscle strength, usually through hydrotherapy and the beneficial physical properties of water. Recently, there has been growing interest in regenerative medicine, which involves the use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and their products to alleviate the characteristic clinical symptoms of osteoarthritis (OA). In vivo studies with canine MSCs have shown that an intra-articular injection of MSCs into cartilage lesions leads to the excellent regeneration of the hyaline cartilage. Regenerative medicine has undergone rapid development in recent years thanks to new therapies based on the application and combination of innovative biomaterials. One of the first known regenerative methods to be used in clinical practice was platelet-rich plasma (PRP). This review summarises the use and potential of MSCs and PRP, including their in vitro properties, their therapeutic effects in the treatment of cartilage lesions in preclinical in vivo studies, their clinical efficacy in the treatment of naturally occurring OA in dogs, and the current limitations of the studies.