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Arthritis Treatment for Patients from Bologna

As part of arthritis care, PRP and SVF cell therapy for the knee, hand, shoulder and other joints — after a doctor has first reviewed your case and tests

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Knee joint: regenerative treatment without surgery
Joint treatment without surgery. Free consultation and review of your scans

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What it is

What is arthritis
and when does this treatment fit?

Inflammation of a joint is what arthritis is. Its usual signs: pain at night and at rest, morning stiffness that takes over half an hour to wear off, swelling, redness and heat over the joint. Possible causes range from autoimmune diseases — rheumatoid or psoriatic arthritis — to gout, infection or a previous injury.

  • No surgery — an injection instead of an operation
  • Own tissue — your blood and adipose tissue
  • Ultrasound guidance for every injection
Knee joint: an injection under ultrasound guidance

Who the treatment suits

It is a doctor who decides, after examining you and going through your scans, whether the treatment suits you

Suitable

A doctor reviews knee X-rays with a patient
  • Pain, crunching or stiffness in a joint
  • Painkillers only help for a short time
  • Recovery after injuries and surgery
  • You need a second opinion on your scans
  • You want to avoid or postpone joint replacement
  • Early or moderate arthrosis or arthritis
  • High load on the joints — sport or physical work

Not suitable

A doctor examines a patient's knee
  • Cancer
  • Pregnancy
  • Blood clotting disorders
  • Acute infections, including infection in or near the joint
  • Flare-up of a serious chronic illness
  • Temporary contraindications: flu, a cold or fever, and skin inflammation over the joint to be treated

Not sure the treatment is right for you?

Leave your number — the coordinator will ask for your scans (X-ray, MRI or ultrasound), and the doctor will tell you whether treatment without surgery suits you.

Find out if it suits me

What we treat

Conditions we treat

How it works

How the procedure goes: step by step

Consultation and scan review1

Consultation and scan review

The doctor checks the joint, goes through your X-rays, MRI or ultrasound and decides if the procedure suits you. If you have scans already, feel free to send them before you come.

Blood sample for PRP2

Blood sample for PRP

Only a small amount of venous blood is taken; it is later used to prepare platelet-rich plasma with growth factors.

Adipose tissue sample3

Adipose tissue sample

Roughly 30 ml of adipose tissue is removed through a puncture on the abdomen or inner thigh under local anaesthetic, and no stitches are needed afterwards.

Processing in a centrifuge4

Processing in a centrifuge

The stromal vascular fraction is isolated after the sample is spun in a centrifuge and separates into layers, then mixed with the platelet-rich plasma.

Injection into the joint5

Injection into the joint

Guided by ultrasound for accurate placement, the doctor injects the prepared material directly into the affected joint.

Follow-up6

Follow-up

No hospital stay and no crutches. Once the procedure is done, the doctor remains in touch and tracks how your joint responds.

Book a consultation

Call or message us — our coordinator will contact you shortly and book your consultation

A doctor talks with a patient about joint treatment
Book a consultation
A doctor talks with a patient about joint treatment

Results

After the procedure

  • Doctor talking warmly with a patient after the procedure

    1 week

    The joint may ache a little more — this is an expected reaction.

  • Doctor consulting an older patient one month after treatment

    1 month

    The pain usually eases.

  • Doctor explaining progress to a patient using a knee joint model

    ~3 months

    Mobility and activity improve.

  • Doctor and patient walking together at a follow-up visit

    ~6 months

    The full effect develops.

How long it lasts differs from person to person and depends on the stage of the condition, body weight, activity and other factors — no one can promise a fixed result.

Comparison

Methods we use

No synthetic or donor material is involved — only your own adipose tissue and blood

Cell therapy (SVF) from your own adipose tissue

SVF, or stromal vascular fraction, is a mix of cells involved in tissue repair, isolated by processing a small amount of your adipose tissue. It is combined with plasma from your own blood and injected into the affected joint.

A doctor explains SVF cell therapy for the knee to a patient on a tablet

Its effect on local inflammation and tissue repair is why it is used in inflammatory arthritis, after the acute flare has settled.

Material
Your adipose tissue and plasma
How it is given
Into the joint, under ultrasound
Duration
The whole procedure is done in one day.

PRP — platelet-rich plasma from your own blood

Your blood, in a small amount, provides plasma rich in platelets and growth factors; injected into the joint, it helps ease inflammation and creates better conditions for repair of the tissues.

A doctor explains PRP therapy for joints to a patient on a monitor

Recommended in some cases of rheumatoid and other inflammatory arthritis, it is one part of a broader treatment plan.

Material
Your blood from a vein
How it is given
Into the joint, under ultrasound
Duration
The whole procedure is done in one day.

The benefits and timings shown are averaged and given for guidance: the plan and recovery depend on your joint and individual features, and the doctor confirms them at the consultation.

At the consultation the doctor will review your scans and suggest a treatment plan

Free consultation

Book a consultation

Joints

Joints we treat

After going through your scans, the doctor selects the joint, the method and the number of injections — whether the joint is large or small

  • KneeKneePain climbing stairs and after walking, plus cartilage wear and meniscus problems
  • HipHipEarly hip osteoarthritis, groin pain, limited rotation
  • ShoulderShoulderWorn joint and nearby tendons, and pain when the arm is raised
  • ElbowElbowPain following overuse or sports strain, along with worn joint surfaces
  • Hand and wrist jointsHand and wrist jointsPain and stiffness in the small joints of the wrist and fingers
  • AnkleAnklePain and stiffness after sprains and old injuries

Advantages

Why patients choose City Medical Centre

Treatment without surgery that sets out to keep your own joint instead of replacing it

Your own tissue

Your own tissue

No synthetic or donor material is involved — only your own adipose tissue and blood

No crutches

No crutches

Small punctures, not incisions, a local anaesthetic and no lengthy rehabilitation

Second opinion

Second opinion

An independent assessment from a doctor, free of charge, once you send your X-rays, MRI or reports

Support after the procedure

Support after the procedure

The result matters to us beyond injection day, so we stay in touch after the procedure

About the clinic

A clinic where you can feel at ease

Modern equipment, comfortable rooms and care for every patient

A doctor and a patient at the clinic

Contact us the way that suits you

We will answer your questions and find a convenient time for a consultation

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Request a free call

Price

Arthritis treatment prices

The cost is set after the consultation: it depends on which joint, which type of arthritis and which method

FAQ

Joint treatment: frequently asked questions

About the conditions

More about these conditions

Other services of our clinic

Arthritis treatment in Bologna: what you should know

SVF contains cells that can modulate the local immune response and support the repair of damaged tissue. Research is ongoing, so the doctor discusses realistic expectations with every patient in Bologna.

Follow-up visits help the doctor see how the joint responds and adjust the plan. In Bologna, you receive recommendations on load and activity for the first weeks after the procedure.

Book a free consultation in Bologna to find out whether PRP or SVF could help your arthritis. The doctor names the price after examining the joint.

Damp Novembers, cold Januaries and the question of weather

Anyone with inflammatory arthritis eventually hears the same advice: "watch the weather". Bologna is a fair place to test that idea. The city sits at 54 m above sea level on the edge of the Po Plain, at the foot of the Apennines, where the Reno and Savena valleys meet. Its climate is humid subtropical. In the 1991-2020 normals, July reaches a mean high of 31.4 °C, while January averages a high of 7.2 °C and a low of -0.5 °C. Relative humidity runs from 59.1% in July to 79.2% in January, and November reaches 81%.

Rain follows a similar pattern. About 667.6 mm falls over the year on 73 days of 1 mm or more, and the wettest months are November (77.2 mm) and October (75.4 mm). The driest are July (32.1 mm) and January (34 mm). Winter is not heavily snowy, with roughly 6 snowy days a year in the older 1961-1990 normals. Even so, the records include a low of -17 °C and a high of 40 °C. A patient with a swollen knee or stiff fingers therefore meets damp autumns, cold January mornings and hot, dry summers in the same year.

Whether any of this changes your joints is individual. Some people notice more stiffness on grey, wet days. Others see no link at all, and a flare can arrive on a sunny afternoon. The honest approach is not to assume a pattern but to record it. If you note the weather beside your symptoms every day, after a few months you can see whether it matters for you. If it does not, you can stop blaming the sky and look at other triggers, such as a missed medicine, an infection, a stressful week or a change in physical load.

The doctor will not treat a weather impression as a diagnosis. What counts is the picture the joint itself gives: pain at night or at rest, morning stiffness longer than half an hour, swelling, and redness and warmth over the joint. The diary is there to record those signs, with the weather as a side note.

How access to specialists is arranged in Italy

Italy's national health service, the SSN (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale), was established in 1978 and gives universal coverage to citizens and residents. It is run on a regional basis under the Ministry of Health, which sets the national Essential Levels of Care (LEA). Bologna is the capital of Emilia-Romagna, so the regional system is the one you will usually deal with when a rheumatology assessment, blood tests or imaging are needed.

Speed of access is the practical question. Waiting times are usually up to a few months in the big public facilities, and private facilities contracted with the SSN usually manage up to a few weeks. No official waiting-list figure was found, so treat these as general ranges, not promises. For someone with a hot, swollen joint, that gap matters, and it is one reason to prepare well while you wait for an appointment.

Specialist visits normally carry a co-pay. Exemptions exist by age (over 65, under 6), by income or because of a chronic illness. Many people with long-standing inflammatory arthritis fall into the chronic-illness category, so ask your general practitioner or the regional health office what applies to you. We do not handle that paperwork and cannot say which exemption fits your case.

The same sources describe patients moving from poorer southern regions to the more prosperous north for care. That tells us that access and quality differ between regions, and that a second opinion is a normal thing to want. An online consultation with us does not replace the SSN rheumatologist who manages a systemic disease. The doctor looks at your scans and history and says whether PRP or SVF could be one part of the plan, alongside the care you already receive.

Keeping a diary the rheumatologist can read

A symptom diary is most useful when it is short enough to keep up. Daily entries that take a minute or two work better than a long weekly essay. Pick a fixed moment, for example after waking, and write the same few items every time.

- **Morning stiffness:** note how long it lasted. The key threshold in the medical material is longer than half an hour, so a rough "under or over 30 minutes" is already informative.

- **Pain:** record the level on a 0-10 scale for the day and for the night, and say whether it wakes you.

- **Swelling, redness, warmth:** note which joint, and whether it looks different from the other side.

- **Medicines:** write down what you took and when, including painkillers. This matters because the material states that painkillers often help only for a short time.

- **Possible triggers:** illness, fever, a cold or flu, a skin problem over a joint, unusual physical load, poor sleep, and the weather if you want to test it.

- **Function:** what you could not do, such as opening a jar, climbing stairs or lifting the arm.

Mark the days when the joint was clearly hotter and more swollen than usual, and write "flare" beside them. This matters because the doctor will not act during a severe flare or an active joint infection. For inflammatory arthritis, SVF is applied after the acute flare has calmed. A diary that shows when the flare began and when it eased helps decide the right moment.

It also helps to photograph a swollen joint on the same day each week, in the same light, from the same angle. Photos can be sent to the coordinator with the rest of your documents. Sudden redness, marked warmth and fever are different from an ordinary flare, because they can point to an infection. In that case do not wait for an online consultation: contact your general practitioner or the emergency services.

The folder to build before the video call

The consultation is online and the first step is free. The doctor checks the joint as far as a video call allows, goes through your X-rays, MRI or ultrasound, and decides whether the procedure suits you. The coordinator will ask for your scans, so it saves time to collect everything before the first message.

A useful folder contains:

- Imaging in digital form: X-ray, MRI or ultrasound images, and the written reports with them. Photographs of film are acceptable if the image is sharp.

- Recent blood test results, and the letters from your rheumatologist or general practitioner, if you have them.

- A list of current medicines for the joints, with the date you started each one.

- Your symptom diary and any photos of the swollen joint.

- A short history: when the joint trouble began, any injuries or earlier operations, and whether psoriasis or gout was ever diagnosed. The cause may be autoimmune (rheumatoid or psoriatic arthritis), gout, infection or an old injury, and the type has to be confirmed first.

- Your questions, written down, so you do not forget them once the call starts.

Tell the coordinator in advance about anything that could rule out or delay the procedure: pregnancy, cancer, a blood clotting disorder, an acute infection, a flare of a serious chronic illness, a fever, a cold or flu, or skin inflammation over the joint. These are the situations in which the doctor postpones treatment or suggests another option.

For the procedure itself, the material describes a blood sample for PRP and, for SVF, roughly 30 ml of adipose tissue taken under local anaesthetic through a single puncture on the abdomen or inner thigh. The injection goes into the joint under ultrasound guidance, and the whole procedure is done in one day. Expect a little more aching in the first week. The pain usually eases after about a month, mobility and activity improve at about 3 months, and the full effect develops at about 6 months. How long it lasts differs from person to person, and no one can promise a fixed result.

Round-the-clock messaging and a calendar full of holidays

Italian public life has many closing days. Every Sunday is a holiday, and the national list includes 1 January, 6 January, Easter Monday, 25 April, 1 May, 2 June, 15 August, 4 October, 1 November, 8 December, 25 December and 26 December. Surgeries and offices may be closed on those dates, and a sudden worsening of a joint does not wait for a working day. Our coordinators answer on WhatsApp and Telegram 24/7, so you can send questions and scans on a Sunday or in the Christmas week and get an answer within the usual reply time of 15 minutes.

The city's rhythm also affects how people spend their days. The University of Bologna, founded around 1088, enrols tens of thousands of students and has 11 schools, 33 departments and 93 libraries. A student with early joint pain, perhaps after a sports injury, can book an online call between lectures, because no waiting room is involved. Daily commuting in the city averages 5.4 km and 53 minutes per weekday trip. Trolleybus lines have been run by TPER since 2012, and a first tramway line was under construction in May 2023. If you spend that time on public transport, you can use a free moment to update your diary or upload scans. An online consultation takes no time out of the day for getting to an appointment.

What changes if the joint is also a load-bearing one

Joint pain in a city with a football stadium of 32,000-38,000 seats and a strong basketball tradition is often sport related. The material lists "high load on the joints — sport or physical work" among the reasons treatment may fit. It also lists recovery after injuries and surgery, and a wish to avoid or postpone joint replacement. If the main trouble is cartilage wear or an old meniscus injury rather than inflammation, the doctor will say so, because osteoarthritis is degenerative and not inflammatory. In the early stages of hip osteoarthritis, PRP or SVF can be combined with exercise therapy and physiotherapy. If the joint is already badly damaged, replacement may be the more realistic option, and the doctor will say so after seeing your scans.

Body weight is one more factor the material names as affecting how long an effect lasts. In national ISTAT figures for 2023, 46.3% of adults were overweight or obese, and 35% of people aged 3 and over were sedentary. These are national figures with no regional split, so they say nothing about Bologna specifically. They do show why weight and activity are worth discussing openly with the doctor.

Does Bologna's damp autumn mean I should postpone a consultation until spring?

No. Joint injections are timed by the state of the joint, not by the season. The doctor waits if you have a severe flare or an active infection, and otherwise looks at your scans and history. Bologna's wettest months are November and October, but the diary will show whether weather matters for you at all. The consultation itself is online, so rain does not get in the way.

How do I find out whether my joint trouble is linked to the weather?

Record the weather beside your symptoms every day for several months, together with morning stiffness, pain, swelling and your medicines. Local climate data show that Bologna has humid winters, with January humidity at 79.2% and November at 81%, and hot summers. Only your own diary shows whether your joints react. Bring it to the call so the doctor can look at the pattern with you.

Can I use the SSN rheumatologist and still ask your doctor for an opinion?

Yes. Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic disease that a rheumatologist treats, and PRP and SVF do not replace that care. They can be considered once an acute flare has settled, to help ease local symptoms. Send your scans and letters from the SSN specialist, and the doctor will say whether injections could be added to your plan.

Waiting for a public appointment takes months. Is there something useful to do meanwhile?

Waiting times are usually up to a few months in large public facilities, according to general descriptions of the Italian system, and shorter in contracted private facilities. While you wait, keep the symptom diary, gather your imaging and reports, and write down your medicines. If the joint becomes red, hot and feverish, do not wait: contact a doctor urgently, because infection must be excluded.

Which documents should I have ready if I live in the Metropolitan City of Bologna but outside the centre?

Where you live in the area does not matter for an online consultation. You need digital copies of X-ray, MRI or ultrasound images, reports, recent blood test results, a list of medicines, and your diary. If you only have printed film, a clear photograph is acceptable. The coordinator will tell you if anything is missing.

Does a co-pay exemption for chronic illness apply to your consultation?

The first consultation and scan review with us are free, so no exemption is needed for that step. Exemptions by age, income or chronic illness apply to the Italian public system, for example to specialist visits. Ask your general practitioner or the regional health office what you qualify for. We cannot confirm exemptions for you.

Can I message you on a Sunday or a public holiday?

Yes. Sundays are holidays in Italy, along with dates such as 1 November, 8 December and 25-26 December, but the coordinators answer on WhatsApp and Telegram 24/7. You can send your scans and questions at any time, for example on 2 November 2026 after the holiday weekend, and the usual reply time is 15 minutes.

Is the treatment suitable if I also have psoriasis or gout?

It depends on the type of arthritis, which the doctor has to confirm first. Psoriatic arthritis is chronic and cannot currently be cured completely, and the aim is to keep inflammation in check. Regenerative injections may be one possible part of the plan, after the acute flare has calmed. Gout and infection are among the possible causes, so mention any such diagnosis and send your test results.