Journal of Tissue Science and Engineering

Stem Cell Therapy: Are we Ready to use it?

Abstract

Jia-Ming Chang, Yi-Chien Lin and Pei-Yi Tsai

The regenerative medicine is a fast growing innovation of health care for replacement of damaged or dysfunctional human organs or tissues with functional normal. However, the shortage of graft donors is the major concern of this treatment. To solve this problem, pluripotent or multipotent stem cells, which have the potential to differentiate into multiple lineages, provide an unlimited source of desired cells for transplantation. Even though stem cell therapy became a promising tool for regenerative medicine, unfortunately some unexpected adverse effects occurred in such treatments. Especially the incidence of life-threatening event from malignant teratomas, which are generated from undifferentiated stem cells in graft, is greater than that from damaged organs or tissues per se. Here, in this article the safety issues associated with stem cell therapy are reviewed, and in warnings for patients who want to receive this therapy are also mentioned.