Fig. 8

Histology of surgically induced SDFT lesions 22 weeks after treatment. a–f Longitudinal specimens of tendon lesions treated with AT-MSCs suspended in autologous inactivated serum (a, c, e) and autologous inactivated serum alone (control; b, d, f) stained with H&E (a, b, scale bar = 200 μm; c, d, e, f, scale bar = 100 μm). Fibril arrangement was mostly unidirectional (a–d), with some cases showing large regions without any regular fibre arrangement (e, f; yellow asterisk) in both groups. Specimens showed variations in cell density (a–d) and regions with high cellularity and vascularization after both treatment modalities (e, f; black asterisks) (Colour figure online)