The authors discuss clinical aspects and conventional treatment of lower limb critical ischemia and the alternative of therapy with autogenous bone marrow stem cells in patients who have exhausted, without success, all the current means of treatment. They comment on the historical aspects, the sources, animal experiments, clinical research and, finally, their initial experience with six patients, all of whom had previous indication of major or minor amputation. For only one patient amputation could not be avoided. In addition to excellent results in pain relief and healing of ischemic ulcers, no deleterious side effects were noted suggesting that this type of cell therapy is safe and efficient although further research and randomized studies are needed to make this a standard therapy.
Stem cell; critical ischemia; adult stem cells; bone marrow
