Review: Cell-based therapies for lumbar degenerative disc disease

Low back pain and degenerative disc disease are a significant cause of pain and disability worldwide. This paper systematically reviews the current status of basic science studies, preclinical and clinical trials utilising cell-based therapies to repair the degenerate intervertebral disc, and discusses the mechanism of action of transplanted cells, as well as the limitations of published studies.


These cell-based biological therapies are, for the first time, attempting not only to improve symptoms, but to restore the disc's biological structure and function. While numerous studies have demonstrated success using cell-based therapies to treat disc disease, these successes are in the early stages of translation into the clinic. The authors believe it is likely that stem cell therapies will become a treatment option for some patients with disc disease in the near future.

Reference: David Oehme, Tony Goldschlager, Peter Ghosh, Jeffrey V. Rosenfeld, Graham Jenkin. Cell-Based Therapies Used to Treat Lumbar Degenerative Disc Disease: A Systematic Review of Animal Studies and Human Clinical Trials. Stem Cells International (2015), Article ID 946031, 16 pages.