Cell therapy for liver diseases: current medicine and future promises

Liver diseases are a major health problem worldwide since they usually represent the main causes of death in most countries, causing excessive costs to public health systems. Nowadays, there are no efficient current therapies for most hepatic diseases and liver transplant is infrequent due to the availability of organs, cost and risk of transplant rejection. Therefore, alternative therapies for liver diseases have been developed, including cell-based therapies. Stem cells (SCs) are characterized by their self-renewing capacity, unlimited proliferation and differentiation under certain conditions into tissue- or organ-specific cells with special functions. Cell-based therapies for liver diseases have been successful in experimental models, showing anti-inflammatory, antifibrogenic and regenerative effects. Nowadays, clinical trials using SCs for liver pathologies are increasing in number, and those that have reached publication have achieved favorable effects, encouraging us to think that SCs will have a potential clinical use in a short time.