Current understanding of mesenchymal stem cells in liver diseases

Table 2 Clinical trials using mesenchymal stem cells to treat liver disease

Disease	Phase	No.	Stage	Source	Dose	Route of delivery	Main results	Ref.
LC	I–II	8	MELD score ≥ 10	Autologous BM-MSCs	30-50 million cells	Peripheral or the portal vein	Reduce volumes of ascites; improve MELD scores, INR, and serum creatinine	Kharaziha et al[64], 2009
LC	I–II	30	MELD Na score approximately 14	UC-MSCs	0.5 × 106 cells/kg	Peripheral	Reduce volumes; improve ALB, TBIL, PTA, and MELD Na scores	Zhang et al[65], 2012
ALC	II	48	Child-Pugh B/C	BM-MSCs	5 × 107 cells/kg	Hepatic artery	Improve Child-Pugh scores and histologic fibrosis	Suk et al[66], 2016
Liver failure	II	53	MELD score: CG: 29.15 ± 3.72; EG: 30.01 ± 3.99	Autologous BM-MSCs	None	Hepatic artery	Improve ALB, TBIL, PT, and MELD scores	Peng et al[67], 2011
ACLF	II	56	17 ≤ MELD score ≤ 30	Allogeneic BM-MSCs	1.0-10 × 105 cells/kg	Peripheral veins	Improve ALT, ALB, TBIL, and MELD scores; decrease mortality	Lin et al[69], 2017
ACLF	II	24	MELD score: CG: 26.32; EG: 24.05	UC-MSCs	0.5 × 106 cells/kg	Cubital vein	Improve ALB, CHE, PTA, and MELD score; increase survival rate	Shi et al[70], 2012

LC: Liver cirrhosis; ALC: Alcoholic liver cirrhosis; ACLF: Acute-on-chronic liver failure; CG: Control group; EG: Experimental group; BM-MSCs: Bone marrow-derived MSCs; UC-MSCs: Umbilical cord-derived MSCs; MELD: End-stage liver disease; ALB: Albumin; ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; TBIL: Total bilirubin; PT: Prothrombin time; PTA: Prothrombin time activity; INR: International normalized ratio; CHE: Cholinesterase.