Stem Cell Therapy for the Treatment of Crohn's Disease; Current Obstacles and Future Hopes.

Several human studies show positive signals, while research methods and sample sizes continue to develop.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Crohn's disease (CD) is an autoimmune disease of the gastrointestinal tract, characterized by relapsing and remitting courses. The disease is debilitating in nature with three prominent phenotypic clinical presentations; fistulizing, stenosing, and inflammatory. Stem cells offer new hope for CD patients by modifying the immune response and progression of the healing process. This mini-review discusses the role of stem cells in treating CD, their effectiveness as a new therapy and their current limitations. The author conducted a literature review on recent randomized controlled trials and cohort studies concerned with the topic in question using the following keywords (Crohn's Disease, perianal fistula, Stem cell therapy, mesenchymal stem cells, remission). Clinical trials show that the stem cells are more effective in the CD-associated complex perianal fistula than the CD enteritis. At present, there are no standardized guidelines regarding dose of stem cells used, number of doses administered, route of administration, type of stem cells used. Only one group of researchers proposed a standardized procedure for injecting mesenchymal stem cells in complex perianal fistula, according to their own experience in clinical trials. Moreover, mesenchymal stem cells and their related types (placental, adipose tissue, umbilical tissue, etc.) are the safest and effective in clinical trial

Evidence level

Several human studies show positive signals, while research methods and sample sizes continue to develop.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.