Stem cell therapy has become one of the main points of interest in medicine today, thanks to its incredible potential to change the way we fight diseases. The rapid advancements in the stem cell research have become increasingly popular among patients as well, although most of them may not understand the implications of cell stem therapies to their full extent.

These therapies take a lot of time and research to develop, and some of them may not turn into viable treatment years from now. But that doesn’t stop ill patients from trying to find a solution to their problem, even though that solution may not always be the right one.

That takes us back to the almighty Internet. There’s nothing we can’t find on a simple search, and that includes a lot of advertisements of stem cell-based clinics that offer treatment for seriously ill patients in exchange for large sums of money. This happens despite it being still an early market, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) pointed out in an article appearing in the current issue of Cell Stem Cell.

Unfortunately, those patients are often unaware that some of these therapies are in fact still experimental, and have not completed the preclinical testing and research required before being put to use.

This is the reason why the ISSCR decided to publish new guidelines for the clinical use of stem cells, backed up by a warning regarding the administration of unproven stem cell interventions outside strictly regulated clinical trials, which puts patients at great risk.

Furthermore, ISSCR also drew attention on the fact that these unproven therapies may also jeopardize the legitimate progress of translational stem cell research. Patients need to understand that it takes years of preclinical testing for a treatment to be approved and used.

The use of stem cell is branched throughout a wide range of therapies, however, only few of them are in the current clinical standard of care, for conditions such as leukemia (hematopoietic stem cell transplants), or burns and corneal disorders (epithelial-stem-cell-based treatment).

As the ISSCR pointed out, the success of a stem cell treatment begins with the adoption of cell processing and manufacturing methods under maximal quality and safety standards.

It is very important for patients to understand the proposed treatments, and to avoid approaching unapproved and uncontrolled clinics for treatment. Furthermore, the patients also need to be aware of the safety of the treatment they seek, as well sign a voluntary informed consent if they wish to take part in research with human subjects.

According to ISSCR, there are a lot of clinics around the world that are more interested in exploiting patients and taking their money than in delivering quality treatments based on safe cell stem therapies. Some of these treatments have no scientific rationale, which triggered the need to establish specific guidelines that can be used to judge the claims made by stem cell clinics and whether the treatments are being developed responsibly.