Clinical application of stem cells: An update 2015

Abstract

Stem cell transplantation has the long history of more than 50 years from the first bone marrow transplantation in 1957. From the 2000s, clinical applications of stem cells significantly increased with more diseases and more patients treated with stem cells. Both autologous stem cells and allogenic stem cells as well as adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and both in vitro non-expanded stem cells and in vitro expanded stem cells were clinically applied. For adult stem cells, besides hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), neural stem cells, endothelial progenitor cells, limbal stem cells… also were used in the treatment of some diseases. To the year 2015, applications of MSCs have dramatically increased when some MSCs based drugs that were approved and commercialized in some countries. About iPSCs, Japanese scientists also firstly applied the iPSCs in treatment of ophthalmological diseases. Currently, the European Medicines Agency approved the first expanded stem cell therapy to repair damaged cornea in the Europe. This review aimed to summarize, update clinical applications of stem cells to 2015.