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World J Stem Cells. Jun 26, 2015; 7(5): 859-865
Published online Jun 26, 2015. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v7.i5.859
Hepatic stem cells: A viable approach for the treatment of liver cirrhosis
Md Aejaz Habeeb, Sandeep Kumar Vishwakarma, Avinash Bardia, Aleem Ahmed Khan
Md Aejaz Habeeb, Sandeep Kumar Vishwakarma, Avinash Bardia, Aleem Ahmed Khan, Center for Liver Research and Diagnostics, Deccan College of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad 500058, Andhra Pradesh, India
Author contributions: Vishwakarma SK and Bardia A performed research, analyzed data and wrote the paper; Habeeb MA and Khan AA designed the research and edited the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors have no conflict of interest related to the manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Aleem Ahmed Khan, Scientist, Center for Liver Research and Diagnostics, Deccan College of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad 500058, Andhra Pradesh, India. aleem_a_khan@rediffmail.com
Telephone: +91-40-24342954 Fax: +91-40-24342954
Received: November 28, 2014
Peer-review started: December 2, 2014
First decision: January 20, 2015
Revised: February 14, 2015
Accepted: April 16, 2015
Article in press: April 20, 2015
Published online: June 26, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Liver cirrhosis is characterized by distortion of liver architecture, necrosis of hepatocytes and regenerative nodules formation leading to cirrhosis. The available treatment modalities are not very effective against liver cirrhosis. Stem cells are considered one of the potential adjuvant treatment modality in liver cirrhosis patients. Fetal hepatic stem cells transplantation in liver cirrhosis has emerged as an alternative to organ transplantation. However long-term stem cells labeling and tracking is needed for cell fate determination after transplantation. Decellularization technology provides a novel tool to develop bioengineered personalized livers to accomplish the shortage of donor livers.