New plastic surgery technique launched in Nicaragua

Managua, Feb 2 - A subsidiary of Nicaraguan conglomerate Grupo Pellas presented here a novel plastic surgery method for Latin America based on the use of stem cells extracted from the patient's fatty tissue.

"There are several technologies for obtaining stem cells, but ours is the easiest, fastest, most effective and accessible," Dr. Michael Carstens, medical director of Pellas' GID Americas unit, told EFE after presenting the new method at a conference in Managua.

Carstens said stem cells from fatty tissue have three functions: generating blood vessels, reproducing the surrounding tissue and calming inflammation.

"Any tissue can be reproduced from them (the stem cells), which is why it depends upon what surrounds them - if you implant them in cartilage, they will produce cartilage," Carstens said.

For Enrique Ochoa, head of the plastic surgery department at Federico Chavez pediatric hospital in Mexico, "the use of stem cells from fatty tissue enables us to access a greater quantity of cells for reconstructive processes and esthetic procedures".

Ramon Llull, director of the STEM Center in Mallorca, Spain, the first to regenerate a woman's breasts from fatty-tissue cells, told reporters that the method is "a good chance to revolutionize medicine, which up to now has been based on the pill and the scalpel". (IANS)