It depends on the clinic: the words "stem cell" cover a range of products as wide as the word "drug." Celva's physician team at Hospital Angeles, Tijuana uses three allogeneic cell types (from a screened donor; no harvest procedure for you): umbilical-cord mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), bone-marrow MSCs, and chondrocytes, matched to the indication and manufactured in the hospital's cGMP lab.
Two patients sit in two waiting rooms. Both are told they're about to receive "stem cell therapy." They're about to receive products that may differ by orders of magnitude across every variable that matters.
"Stem cells" from one clinic are not the same product as "stem cells" from another.
Begin with the part of the brochure that almost no clinic prints: the words "stem cell" cover a range of products as wide as the word "drug." Aspirin and chemotherapy are both drugs. Cord-derived MSCs, expanded under cGMP and characterized against the ISCT panel, and a vial of adipose-derived stromal vascular fraction prepared bedside in a centrifuge, are both stem cell therapy.
The difference is not a slogan. It is measurable.
This section walks you through each of those variables, in the order in which they matter. By the end of it, the phrase "we use stem cells" should sound to you the way "we use medicine" sounds to a physician: true, but not informative. The right questions are the next layer down. We try to answer all of them, in writing, before you ever sit in a chair.
The questions to ask before you accept a quote, in order. Source. Identity. Verification. Each is the subject of at least one article below; each is also, on its own, a sufficient reason to walk away from a clinic that can't answer.
Three tissues are the practical sources of MSCs. Cord (umbilical), bone marrow, adipose. They are not interchangeable. Cord-derived cells are younger, more proliferative, and more immunomodulatory. Bone marrow yields the best-characterized cells in the literature but requires an invasive harvest. Adipose-derived stromal vascular fraction, prepared bedside, is the source most often misrepresented as "stem cell therapy."
Positive, ≥ 95%
Negative, ≤ 2%
Plastic-adherent, tri-lineage. ISCT 2006.
The International Society for Cellular Therapy minimum criteria. Plastic adherent. Positive for CD73, CD90, CD105. Negative for CD45, CD34, CD14 or CD11b, CD79α or CD19, and HLA-DR. Tri-lineage differentiation potential in vitro. If a clinic can't show you flow cytometry against this panel for the lot you're receiving, the word "MSC" on the consent form is decorative.
At Celva the ISCT identity panel (CD73+ / CD90+ / CD105+) is run per lot.
See Not the same and Counts
A released lot must pass six independent assays before any vial leaves the lab. Sterility (no bacteria/fungi); identity (the ISCT panel); viability (≥95%); potency (a functional assay, not a count); endotoxin; mycoplasma.
See cGMP and Testing panel
≥95%
Cell viability at infusion, measured after thaw, right before treatment.
Celva release spec, per lot.
Every lot
Re-assayed for viability the morning of treatment, after the cold chain.
Post-thaw, before any cell is drawn. Not the freeze-time number.
It's not what the cells become. It's what they signal.
MSCs initiate a signaling cascade that operates at six levels at once. Together these mechanisms address the upstream biology behind chronic conditions, changing the environment so the body's own repair capacity can function again. The signaling persists well beyond the cells themselves.
Reduces the chronic inflammatory signaling that contributes to pain, dysfunction, and progressive tissue damage, systemically.
Attenuates the fibrotic cascade that replaces functional tissue with scar tissue, a downstream consequence of chronic inflammation.
Recalibrates dysregulated immune activity across the body without systemic immune suppression.
Supports formation of new vascular networks, contributing to tissue perfusion and a more favorable systemic repair environment.
Releases growth factors (BDNF, NGF, GDNF) that support neuronal survival and protect nerve tissue from chronic inflammatory damage.
Signals stressed, at-risk host cells to survive rather than die, mediated by factors like HGF and IGF-1, preserving tissue that chronic inflammation would otherwise lose.
These six mechanisms are active regardless of cell source. What varies, and what the physician team optimizes, is which cell type, dose, and delivery method produces the strongest expression of these mechanisms for a given indication.
Celva's physician team at Hospital Angeles, Tijuana doesn't use a single cell product across all patients. Source, biology, and mechanism expression are matched to the indication, delivery route, and clinical goal.
All three are manufactured in the cGMP lab at Hospital Angeles, using proprietary culture media, expansion methods, and protocols developed and used nowhere else. Most clinics, in Tijuana or Cancún, don't run a lab at all; they buy frozen vials from a third-party supplier. Ours are screened to the same identity standards and released against the same panel. The cell type that ends up in the dose is the clinical decision.
Donated cord tissue, full-term healthy births. Cells with a robust secretome, higher anti-inflammatory cytokine expression and stronger immunomodulatory activity per cell than adult-derived cells. The preferred choice for systemic IV protocols, neurologic indications, and autoimmune cases where broad immune and inflammatory recalibration is the primary goal.
Used in Systemic IV · Neurologic · Autoimmune · Longevity
Bone marrow MSCs, adult allogeneic
Adult allogeneic donors. Bone marrow aspirate, expanded under cGMP, screened to the same identity standards as UC-MSCs. More lineage-committed than UC-MSCs, biased toward musculoskeletal tissue types: stronger anti-fibrotic and pro-angiogenic expression in chronically inflamed joints. Not the autologous "same-day bone marrow" product offered at most U.S. clinics; this is a donor-sourced, expanded, batch-released product.
Used in Spine, disc & joint injections · Orthopedic combination protocols
Chondrocytes
Mature cartilage cells from a screened donor, with no harvest procedure for you. Grown in the lab, they shift into a more active, chondroblast-like state (the young, dividing form of a cartilage cell). Added alongside the MSCs in almost every joint case.
Used in Almost every joint case · Alongside the MSCs
Cell selection is a clinical decision made during physician-team review, not a product the patient picks at intake. Target tissue, mechanism priority, delivery route, the structural-versus-signaling question, and the evidence base for the specific case all inform it. In many cases, a combination protocol (UC-MSCs systemically alongside BM-MSCs and chondrocytes at the target site) produces a more complete response than any single cell type alone. The cell type is part of the protocol, not a product on a menu.
Each article stands alone, but they're built to be read in order. The first is the foundation: if you only read one piece in this whole library, read that one.
What this section will and will not do. It ranks the sources: cord first, fat last. It will not tell you one cell type suits every case. Which of the three we use depends on the indication and the patient. The interesting answer is when each applies.
A characterized cell-therapy product is a precise object. A precise object can be described precisely, including by what it is not. Four claims we don't make, and wouldn't let our marketing make either.
Stromal vascular fraction prepared bedside from a patient's own fat is a different product from cultured, characterized allogeneic MSCs. Both can be called "stem cell therapy." Only one passes the ISCT identity panel. We sell the latter. If you want the former, there are clinics for that, but you should know what you're buying.
The ISCT panel is run on every working cell bank and on release of every clinical lot. Not on the master bank ten years ago. If a clinic shows you a single flow plot from 2019 and calls it characterization, the answer is that the lot in front of you hasn't been characterized.
A headline count is a denominator. The numerator is viable cells with intact identity and function. A vial of 100M cells at 60% viability with no potency assay is not equivalent to a vial of 50M cells at 95% viability with a documented immunomodulatory assay. All four numbers are on the certificate of analysis for each lot, available on request.
MSCs are immunomodulators and paracrine signalers, not regenerative engines that rebuild lost tissue. They lower inflammatory cytokines, shift macrophage polarization, support endogenous repair. That is what the literature supports. Anything you read here that sounds bigger than that is in the wrong document. Email us.
It's available on request through your patient coordinator. Ask for it by name.