Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy for Chronic Wound Healing

Abstract

Chronic or non-healing skin wounds present an ongoing challenge in advanced wound care and the current wound healing technologies remain insufficient. Recently, stem cell therapy has emerged as a promising new approach for chronic wound healing, with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) being of the most interest. MSCs have proven to be an attractive cell type for cell-based therapy due to their ease of isolation, vast differentiation potential, and immunomodulatory effects during transplantation. Furthermore, MSCs were determined to play an innate role in the wound healing process making them an obvious candidate for treatment of chronic wounds. When introduced into the wound bed, MSCs have been shown to promote fibroblast migration, stimulate extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition, facilitate wound closure, initiate re-epithelialization, enhance angiogenesis, and mitigate inflammation in preclinical animal models. The efficacy and safety of MSC application for treatment of chronic wounds was further confirmed by several clinical studies involving human subjects which yielded similar positive results with no adverse side effects. However, while MSCs appear to be a promising resource for chronic wound care, more research is required to determine the optimal cell source and route of delivery before this technology can be applied in clinical medicine.