Stroke/neurological injury
The brain remains the least understood system in the body in terms of mechanistic
functionality and pathology. Unfortunately, cerebrovascular diseases remain the third
leading cause of death in the USA, with scores of more individuals who survive to suffer
debilitating lifelong injuries. Cerebral ischaemia (CI) is by far the most prevalent cause
of stroke (87%, American Heart Association 2007) and about 700,000 people in the
USA are affected by stroke annually; 1 in 16 Americans who suffer a stroke will die from
it. Surgical interventions and hypothermia have advanced greatly in the last decade.
However, as with the heart, the brain is extremely sensitive to hypoxic assault and even
in the best interventional outcomes some degree of tissue death is likely.
Stem cell therapy is expected to ameliorate the sequelae of those ischemic stroke
patients who have reached the acute phase, a stage at which no other proven treatment
is currently available. The results of clinical trials are promising, in the sense that most
methods used for stem cell transplantation appear to be safe. It seems that intravenous
or intra-arterial transplantation is preferred in the acute phase, where the aim is to
ameliorate systemic and local inflammation and cell engraftment is not required.
Alternatively, intracerebral transplantation is preferred in the chronic phase, where cell
engraftment is considered the objective of cell therapy.
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2020, 21(19), 7380
