What stem cell-based therapies are currently available?

Stem cells have natural potential to treat a wide range of diseases, including diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, spinal cord injuries and heart pathologies. Stem cells are a powerful weapon in the treatment of diseases, and scientists are currently actively working to study as many of their properties as possible and use them to create new treatments.

Several cell-based therapies have already been developed and approved for a number of diseases. Researchers are actively working to develop and implement new therapeutic methods, trying to cover an increasing number of ailments, but their number is still limited. Each stem cell therapy is tailored to the disease it aims to cure, namely by introducing specific genetic changes or replenishing a specific type of cell that is not functioning properly in the patient’s body.

How can stem cells cure various diseases?

Currently, the entire global research and medical community is conducting numerous clinical trials with stem cells to obtain new safe and effective treatments for diseases. Now the most common method of treating a particular disease with stem cells is transplantation of such cells. Stem cells differentiate into the required cell type, and then mature cells begin to replace areas of tissue affected by disease or damage due to injury. The first to begin such research were the removal of blood stem cells from the bone marrow, which are now used by doctors.

1. This therapeutic method is used, among other things, to replace neurons that have been partially or completely damaged after spinal cord injury, stroke, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease, or other neurological diseases.
2. Cells grown to produce insulin could be the best treatment for people with diabetes. In addition, stem cells grown for heart muscle can use their natural properties to repair damage caused by a heart attack.
3. Blood stem cells are components of bone marrow and are capable of exerting their therapeutic effects during bone marrow transplantation. Now doctors can remove individual blood stem cells and replace them with only those cells that are necessary for repair and regeneration without the need to transplant entire parts of the bone marrow. The cells migrate to the corresponding tissues of the bone marrow, where they self-renew and regenerate the entire circulatory system.
4. Blood stem cell transplantation has been successfully used to treat leukemia, lymphoma, myeloma, myelodysplastic syndrome and myeloproliferative diseases. The patient’s stem cells that produce defective cell types are removed using chemotherapy. They are then replaced with healthy cells from the donor or the patient’s own cells that have been modified in the laboratory. Hybrid cell therapy, called CAR-T cell therapy, is used to treat some aggressive types of blood cancer. This is a personalized treatment in which the patient’s own immune cells are extracted, modified in the laboratory and reintroduced into the body. Because this is a very complex procedure, it is usually only used if conventional treatments have failed.
5. Research also suggests that stem cells may be able to exert their natural properties in treating autoimmune diseases, helping the human body more easily accept transplanted organs. Severe combined immunodeficiency SCID can be treated with a blood stem cell transplant to replace defective immune cells with healthy ones.

One of the world’s most famous institutions practicing this type of treatment is the Cellthera Stem Cell Therapy Center in the Czech Republic. This is a specialized clinic that offers the best conditions for patients undergoing treatment and provides high quality therapy and further care. We can arrange an initial consultation for you.

Stem cell-based treatments go far beyond cell transplantation. Researchers are now actively working to study in detail the process of transformation of stem cells into heart muscle cells, which may provide clues about what factors can directly stimulate the heart muscle to regenerate itself. Stem cells can also be used to study how a disease affects healthy cells, to identify and develop new drugs, or to identify toxic side effects of drugs.

Thus, there are other treatments based on the use of adult stem cells, however, they are still in their clinical trials. Until these trials are completed, it will not be possible to say for sure how wide the range of stem cell therapies is and which diseases it can cover.