Stem cell therapy in patients with epilepsy: A systematic review.

Hadi Aligholi, Maryam Safahani, Ali A Asadi-Pooya

Clinical neurology and neurosurgery 2021 Jan

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The existing evidence of the potential applications and benefits of stem cell transplantation (SCT) in people with epilepsy and also its adverse effects in humans were systematically reviewed. MEDLINE (accessed from PubMed), Google Scholar, and Scopus from inception to August 17, 2020 were systematically reviewed for related published manuscripts. The following key words (in the title) were used: "stem cell" AND "epilepsy" OR "seizure". Articles written in English that were human studies on stem cell transplantation in people with epilepsy were all included. We could identify six related articles. Because of their different methodologies, performing a meta-analysis was not feasible; they included 38 adults and 81 pediatric patients together. Five studies were single-arm human studies; there were no serious adverse events in any of the studies. While stem cell transplantation seems like a promising therapeutic option for patients with drug-resistant epilepsy, data on its application is scarce and of low quality. For now, clinical stem cell-based interventions are not justified. Perhaps, in the future, there will be a rigorous and intensely scrutinized clinical trial protocol with informed consent that could provide enough scientific merit and could meet the required ethical standards. Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Citation

Hadi Aligholi, Maryam Safahani, Ali A Asadi-Pooya. Stem cell therapy in patients with epilepsy: A systematic review. Clinical neurology and neurosurgery. 2021 Jan;200:106416