Abstract

One of the major problems observed in veterinary practice are articular cartilage injuries in animals. In terms of agriculture it leads to their culling from the herd, even if they are a highly productive animals. With companion animals, owners usually have to decide between euthanasia or long-term or life-long, treatment of the injury by a veterinarian. The use of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) for the treatment of cartilage injury in veterinary medicine is based on the good results observed in preclinical studies, where large animals have been used as experimental models to study the regenerative activity of MSCs. According to the literature, MSCs in veterinary medicine have been used to treat cartilage injury of dogs and horses, whereas sheep and goats are generally models for reproducing the disease in preclinical experimental studies.

Key words: Mesenchymal stem cells, Cartilage tissue, Animals, Regeneration, Therapy.