DALLAS — For Jackie Jones, turning back the clock is cutting edge. Jones is the second patient in North Texas to undergo a new cosmetic surgery that uses stem cell treatment.
“I will be happy to see the lines on my face go away," she said. "I will be happy with the new shape of my body and that in itself is really exciting to me."
Dr. Jeffrey Caruth, an OBGYN practicing cosmetic surgery, started the procedure by removing fat from several parts of her body to create volume in her face and chest.
Under local anesthetic, she was awake during the entire surgery. Her hands were strapped down to keep her from touching the sterile area. It was a procedure Jones called painless.
“You know when you're hungry and your tummy is grumbling before it's time to eat, it kind of felt like that,” she said.
Caruth said stem cells help solve a problem that has plagued prior procedures.
“The problem has been with traditional fat grafting that you put a volume of fat into the face, the buttocks and then in a month or two or three there is significant volume loss due to death of the fat cells you put in,” he said.
To help the fat survive, it was injected with Jones' stem cells for regenerative purposes. Caruth used an enzyme to pull the stem cells out of her fat. A machine then created a concentrated solution of stem cells, which are injected into a fresh batch of fat for double the power.
“You're going to get twice the graft survival versus other methods,” Caruth said.
The doctor said filler injections can last up to a year. While regular fat grafting lasts anywhere between three to five years, Caruth said he hopes the use of stems cells will lead to results that last anywhere between five to 10 years.
Dr. Jeffrey Kenkel, the vice chairman of plastic surgery with UT Southwestern, said while he has great hope for stem cells, he said they aren't predictable enough yet to guarantee results.
“There is a tremendous amount of excitement about stem cells," he said. "We just don't have a lot of information about them, about how they work and how we control them to do what we want them to do."
Kenkel agrees stem cells will change medicine in the near future, but said more scientific and objective research is needed.
“Are the stem cells going to stick around and actually control how that person heals and what kind of results they have?" he said. "We just don’t' have the answer to those questions yet."
Caruth said he is the first to do the procedure in North Texas and says the risks are the same as with regular fat grafting, which include swelling, bruising, burning, bleeding temporary numbness and infections
“When you're using the regenerative cells from the fat, it really doesn't pose any extra risk," he said. "They're your cells."
The surgery costs about $8,000.
“I can really tell a difference," Jones said of her results. "The lines between my eyebrows are gone."
