J Anesth Perioper Med. 2017;4(4):186-194. https://doi.org/10.24015/ebcmed.japm.2017.0009
From the 1Department of Anesthesiology, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; 2Department of Anesthesiology, Beijing Anzhen Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; 3Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Correspondence to Dr. Yun Wang at wangyun129@ccmu.edu.cn.
EBCMED ID: ebcmed.japm.2017.0009 DOI: 10.24015/ebcmed.japm.2017.0009
Aim of review
Neuropathic pain induced by injury to the somatosensory system is a great clinical problem. Despite multiple therapeutic strategies, the medical community still faces a challenge to treat neuropathic pain in a complete and definitive way, since the pathogenesis of this hypersensitive state is very complex. Stem cell transplantation may be an important approach for the treatment of neuropathic pain. This article aimed to review important and illustrative results from recent stem cell studies under various neuropathic pain conditions and to interpret their clinical implications for stem cell transplantation.
Methods
We reviewed recent articles and literatures about stem cells for the treatment of neuropathic pain, in order to identify the types of stem cells, delivery approaches and the advances of stem cells for the treatment of peripheral nerve injury induced neuropathic pain, painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy and spinal cord injury (SCI) induced chronic pain.
Recent findings
Recently, the successful use of stem cell for the treatment of a diverse spectrum of diseases in animals has attracted more attentions from pain scientists. Accumulating evidence has shown that stem cell transplantation has a therapeutic effect on neuropathic pain. Stem cell transplantation can effectively relieve neuropathic pain under different pathological conditions. However, it is interesting to point out that peripheral neuropathic pain seems to be more responsive to stem cell therapy than SCI-induced chronic pain. Moreover, stem cell treatment does not always exert positive results in SCI-induced chronic pain (e.g. aggravating pain above the lesion spinal cord segment).
Conclusion
The analgesic effect of stem cells depends on the capacity to offer a multipotent cellular source for replacing injured neural cells and delivering trophic factors to lesion sites. Stem cell researches should focus on both experimental and clinical studies of neuropathic pain in the future. (Funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Beijing Natural Science Foundation, the Excellent Program for Scientific Activity of Returned Oversea Scholar, Beijing, China, and the Program for High Levels of Health Personnel in Beijing City, China.)
Article Type
Review Article
Declaration of Interests
No other potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (81428008, 81400909, 81571065), Beijing Natural Science Foundation (7152056), the Excellent Program for Scientific Activity of Returned Oversea Scholar, Beijing, China (2013), and the Program for High Levels of Health Personnel in Beijing City, China (2013).
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