Cell Therapy in Parkinson’s Disease

Context: Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the common neurodegenerative disorders, characterized by the gradual loss of dopamine (DA) containing neurons in the substantia nigra. It is currently treated by L-DOPA and DAergic drugs. Although these treatments are very effective in the beginning of the disease, but they are not curative and have side effects in chronic use.

Evidence Acquisitions: The aim of cell replacement therapies for PD is looking for a long-lasting relief of patients’ symptoms. Different sources of stem cells are recruited to establish a long lasting treatment for PD. We have categorized them into embryonic stem cells from the fertilized egg, neural stem cells from the embryonic or adult brain, mesenchymal stem cell, and stem cells from other tissues. In this review we used three key words "Parkinson's disease, stem cells and neostriatum transplantation" to search in "PubMed" search engine. We found more than hundreds of publications but limitation for citation led us to select only those that were more innovative.

Results: Cell replacement therapies in PD aim to provide greater long-lasting relief of patients’ symptoms. Although the transplants survive, reinnervate the striatum, and generate adequate symptomatic relief in some patients yet side effects are still major concern.

Conclusions: This article reviewed different sources of cell used in transplantation and focused on their advantages and disadvantages in transplantation studies.