Liver Repair

Stem cell therapy is currently one of the most exciting areas of biomedical research with hopes of providing therapeutic treatments for a myriad of diseases, including liver diseases. Several liver diseases fall under this category, including fibrosis of the liver, and hepatitis B and C viral infection. At the cirrhotic stage, liver disease is considered irreversible and the only alternative is orthotopic liver transplantation. While orthotopic liver transplantation cures chronic liver disease and a variety of metabolic and genetic deficiency disorders, the increased shortage of donor organs restricts liver transplantation. Therefore novel therapeutic options are in demand.

Adult stem cells with their multilineage differentiation potential and self-renewal are possible candidate cells and it is believed that novel cellular therapeutics can perform better than any medical device, recombinant proteins or therapeutic agents. In this chapter we have presented our own experience using adult stem cells for therapeutics for liver disease as well as reviewed the latest literature on this topic.