Vascular Conditions
Stem Cell Therapy & Vascular Conditions
The term “vascular disease” refers to any malady that affects the blood vessels of the circulatory system, interfering with the ability of the heart to efficiently pump blood through the body. The vasculature is critical for maintenance of tissue homeostasis, and disturbances can greatly impact health. Vascular disease can affect the arteries, veins and lymph vessels and can include blood disorders that affect circulation. Blood clots can clog vessels and block blood flow to the brain, or weakened blood vessels can burst, causing internal bleeding.
Vascular conditions commonly occur at circulatory sites where blood flow is turbulent, such as sites where arterial blood flow changes abruptly. These conditions include stroke, peripheral artery disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm, carotid artery disease, pulmonary embolism and more. Risk of vascular disease is high for individuals who are obese, smoke, have high blood pressure, have high cholesterol or suffer from diabetes.
How can stem cell therapy help?
Stem cell therapies are actively being explored, and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been shown to be promising for the treatment of vascular disease. MSCs are derived from pericytes that line blood vessels, and they provide microenvironmental cues to regulate homeostasis and vascular remodeling. Infused MSCs exhibit enhanced homing to sites of inflammation and ischemia and can promote angiogenesis (new blood vessel formation) through the release of factors including VEGF, bFGF and SDF-1. Several clinical studies have shown that infused MSCs are promising for treatment of vascular disease and have enhanced walking time, ankle-brachial and limb perfusion and have trended toward improved amputation-free survival. Recently, significant improvement has been demonstrated with locally injected MSCs for treatment of Buerger’s disease, which is a form of critical limb ischemia characterized by inflammation and thrombosis in limbs. Transplantation of MSCs in humans for a variety of conditions has been generally well tolerated.
Research articles on the use of stem cells in the treatment of vascular disease can be found here:
- https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/01.res.0000143421.27684.12
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4012944/
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3688296/
- http://bmb.oxfordjournals.org/content/98/1/187.long
Examples of current and completed clinical trials registered at FDA.gov that investigate use of MSCs can be found here: