movement without stress for another two to three weeks.”
By week four, the patient is able to use the treated fingers as they normally would, Meyer-Marcotty concludes.
The new paper reports how the procedure fared in 28 finger joints among 18 patients treated between December 2014 and May 2015, as part of a pilot study.
Participants reported a large reduction in pain, and researchers also noted an improvement in their ability to close their fist and to grip objects by pinching fingers together.
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The patients suffered no infections or other complications as a result of the procedure, researchers report.
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Is lipofilling right for you?
But Meyer-Marcotty notes that not all patients experienced relief from the lipofilling.
“We have patients who benefited from that more or less from the first week,” he says. “We have also patients who did not see any improvement for two or three months, and then they started improving. And we have patients who did not improve at all. So that’s kind of the whole spectrum.”
Researchers also aren’t sure how long the relief lasts, and how often a patient might need to come in for a repeat procedure.
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“At this point I’ve done repeated injections, but mostly it’s a one-time treatment,” Meyer-Marcotty adds.
It’s not completely clear why the procedure helps some patients, but Meyer-Marcotty has a few theories.
It could be that the fat simply lubricates the joints so they work more smoothly, but it also could be that stem cells in the fat either prompt the
