Told you need a knee replacement?Stem cells for the knee may be your next option.
Stem cell therapy for knees inside Hospital Angeles in Tijuana, Mexico, 25 to 30 minutes from San Diego. Before you book the operating room, the physician team reviews your imaging, your reports and your symptoms, and says plainly whether cells fit your knee, or whether surgery is the right tool. One day over the border, and most patients are home the same day.
A patient coordinator typically calls within 1 business day. About 15 minutes, no cost, no obligation.
Medically reviewed by the physician team at Hospital Angeles · June 2026
#1 indication
The knee is the joint we screen most. Typically early-to-moderate osteoarthritis or a surgical recommendation in hand.
1 treatment day
Check-ins at 1 week, then at 1, 3 and 6 months, then once a year, happen by phone or video, not by flying back. Whether a second treatment makes sense is decided at your follow-up reviews.
Who qualifies for stem cells in the knee.
You were handed one option and told to schedule it. Bring us whatever that decision was based on. By the time a knee is arthritic, the tendons, ligaments, and muscles around it are usually strained too, so candidacy is about more than how much cartilage is left. Four profiles, starting with the one we turn away.
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Not a fit
Surgery is the right tool.
Ligament instability that needs reconstruction, or a knee that needs hardware. We say so before any quote.
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A frank conversation
Bone on bone, end stage.
Kellgren-Lawrence grade IV, including bone loss beneath the cartilage (subchondral bone loss). A lower expected response than a moderate knee. If you want to delay a replacement, we will still consider you, case by case, after an honest forecast.
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Also a fit
Meniscus damage, chronic tendinopathy, post-injury drift.
Where conservative care has plateaued and PRP or cortisone has not held.
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Strong fit
Moderate knee osteoarthritis, joint space still there.
The profile we accept most often. Kellgren-Lawrence II to III, with joint space preserved in at least one compartment.
Knee injections under live imaging.
A stem cell knee injection here is placed under real-time fluoroscopy or ultrasound, so the cells reach the compartment on the screen and the supporting tendons and ligaments around it. Needle position is confirmed before release. Paracrine signaling (the cells' chemical messaging to nearby tissue) works over weeks to months.
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The cells
Three cell types, matched to your knee.
Bone-marrow and umbilical-cord MSCs (mesenchymal stem cells), sometimes with chondrocytes (cartilage cells) for cartilage support. Allogeneic (from a screened donor; no harvest procedure for you), grown in the on-site cGMP-compliant lab, released after 6 lab tests: sterility, identity, viability, potency, endotoxin, mycoplasma. At least 95% viable at infusion.
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The needle
Live imaging, not a blind stick.
Cells go into the joint space and into the tendons, ligaments, and muscles that hold the knee together, each placement confirmed on screen before release. If the team needs a scan you do not have, MRI, X-ray, ultrasound, and CT are in the same building.
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The table
Local anesthetic, 15 to 30 minutes.
Local anesthetic, with twilight sedation available if you want it, and Dr. Rocio Ambrosio Nuño, anesthesiology, in the room. No general anesthesia. A still patient lets the physician place the full dose. Expect soreness at the site for 24 to 72 hours.
Dr. Cesar Amescua, Medical Director, and Dr. Alejandro Castillo, interventional radiology, decide which cells, what dose, and which routes from your imaging. The first days usually bring soreness. Any change is measured over months.
Stem cells vs a knee replacement: when surgery is the right tool.
A knee replacement and stem cells for the knee are not competing answers to the same knee. They are for different knees, and your imaging says which one you have.
A knee replacement
The right tool for a knee that has run out of joint
- Ligament instability that needs reconstruction, or anything else that needs hardware.
Stem cells for the knee
Offered for a knee with something left to work with
- Kellgren-Lawrence II to III, with joint space preserved in at least one compartment.
- Meniscus damage, chronic tendinopathy, and post-injury drift where PRP or cortisone has not held.
- 1 treatment day inside Hospital Angeles, Tijuana, with check-in calls from home at 1 week, then at 1, 3 and 6 months, then once a year.
- Designed to support the tissue around the joint. No outcome is promised.
Bring your surgeon's recommendation to the call. If surgery is the right tool for your knee, that is what you will hear.
He operated on knees for a living. Then it was his.
"I ended up having surgery twice on my knee. I had torn meniscus in my knee." Dr. Kirk Lewis spent his career in sports orthopedics, the athletic teams at Boise State University under his care. Then the knee was his own, with degenerative changes already showing. In his own words, what he chose to do about it.
Dr. Lewis is a Celva patient, not a member of Celva's physician team. His credentials and his words are his own, from his interview. Individual results vary.
Credentials, as he states them on camera
Orthopedic surgeon
Residency in orthopedic surgery, Los Angeles
Fellowship, trauma surgery
Subspecialty training after residency
Fellowship, sports medicine
A second fellowship, in the joints athletes wear out
Boise State University athletics
Sports orthopedic surgeon caring for the university's teams
College football, on scholarship
5 seasons as a player before medical school
2 surgeries on his own knee
Torn meniscus and degenerative changes, before he tried cell therapy
Bone on bone: what we say plainly.
A lower expected response than a moderate knee, and you hear that before any quote. If you want to delay a replacement, we will still consider treating you after an honest forecast. The decision is yours, made with realistic expectations rather than optimistic ones.
What a knee case costs.
If you came here for a price, it is not on this page, and here is why: a clinic that quotes you one before reading your imaging is guessing. Three things set your number.
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Cell type and dose
Which cells, and how many.
Set from your imaging, and re-checked alive the morning you are treated.
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One knee or both
Treated in the same day.
Two knees means more physician time and a larger total dose.
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Follow-up
Inside the quote.
1 treatment day. Then calls at 1 week, at 1, 3 and 6 months, and once a year after that. Not a plan you buy afterward.
Cell therapy is not FDA-approved for these uses in the United States and is not covered by US insurers; patients pay directly. HSA and FSA eligibility depends on your plan.
What the day looks like.
Most patients are home the same day. Work backward from there: about 4 hours at the hospital, 15 to 30 minutes of it on the table, a 25 to 30 minute drive from San Diego, and a call with a coordinator before any of it.
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Reviewed first
Before you travel.
Book a call and a patient coordinator typically calls within 1 business day, then gathers your imaging, reports, and symptoms. The physician team reads them before anyone quotes or books you. You get a written answer: candidate or not, and why.
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Picked up
Anywhere in Southern California.
25 to 30 minutes from San Diego to Hospital Angeles, Tijuana, a 116-bed private hospital in the Angeles Health network. A Celva driver crosses the border with you. 1 or 2 companions can be with you in the suite all day.
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Treated
15 to 30 minutes on the table.
Imaging on site if a scan is missing, the knee examined in person if that would change the plan, then the injection under live imaging, under local anesthetic, with twilight sedation available if you want it. Almost every joint and spine patient also receives a systemic IV the same day.
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Home
Most patients, the same day.
A companion is welcome, never required: the Celva driver takes you home. Stay off the knee with very limited activity for the first 7 to 10 days, then physical therapy. Check-ins happen by phone or video, so this is the only trip unless a follow-up review says a second treatment makes sense.
Common questions about stem cells for the knee.
Straight answers. Not reassurances.
Can stem cell therapy replace knee replacement surgery?
Do I need an MRI before we talk?
Does the knee injection hurt?
How many treatments will I need, and do I have to keep coming back to Mexico?
How soon can I use the knee normally?
The physician team. Your whole case. A plain answer.
Your first call is with a Celva patient coordinator, about 15 minutes, who collects your case for the physician team's independent review. Then you hear it plainly: candidate or not. Nothing to commit to on the call. Have your imaging or reports ready, and any quote another clinic gave you.