Stem cell therapy for brain disorders: why results are discordant?

摘要

Discovery of stem cells has generated unparallel hope and expectation for patients suffering from disabling brain diseases, including trauma, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and others. Preclinical studies in rodent models of these diseases have shown mixed results -some favorable while some unfavorable. In this month's issue of Neurology India, Moorthy et al. report a study in a cryoinjury rodent model of head trauma and report no statistically significant benefit with the use of mesenchymal stem cells. This is discordant with many other published preclinical studies which show benefit. They discus many reasons for the discordant results, including timing of infusion of stem cells, nature of the model, sample size, and blinding of measurements. An interesting finding is that results from blinded measurements show lower trend of benefit than unblinded measurements of outcome.