Current trends in stem cell therapy for improvement of bone quality

As the average lifespan of humans continues to increase, improvement in the quality of life for elderly people is important. Among the most severe problems during aging are bone loss-associated diseases such as poor fracture healing and osteoporosis. Therapy-induced bone loss such as bisphosphonate-associated osteonecrosis of the jaw also increases in incidence with age. Most of the current treatment strategies are focused on antiresorptive and bone formation pharmacological agents, but it is hard to obtain appropriate bone augmentation and there are concerns regarding their long-term safety without side effects. Therefore, a novel method for improvement of bone quality is required, and stem cells are of great interest as potential therapeutic tools for diseases that remain without clinically effective therapies. In this review, we describe the concept of stem cell-based therapy and evaluate the current progress of cell therapy for the improvement of bone quality. In addition, we report and discuss a new clinical strategy in which improved bone quality was obtained by applying bone-marrow derived MSCs with platelet rich plasma in clinical therapy.