Safety of intra-arterial autologous bone marrow mononuclear cell transplantation for acute ischemic stroke

Stroke is the third cause of death and the leading cause of disability in adult subjects. Although stroke mortality has been declining in some countries, stroke morbidity has been increasing due to the aging of population and patients improved survival. Treatment with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA) is successful provided it is administered within 3 hours of symptoms onset, but its use is limited to about 5% of the patients with acute ischemic stroke. Furthermore, no neuroprotective agent has yet been proven effective in human clinical trials. The development of other therapeutic strategies is, therefore, warranted. The use of stem cells in animal models has led to functional improvement following stroke. Recent publications have shown that bone marrow mononuclear cells (BM-MNC) therapy through intracoronary injection is a safe procedure in patients with acute or chronic ischemic heart disease. Based on these preliminary data, there has been growing interest in the study of BM-MNC transplantation for acute ischemic stroke. We report the first case of intra-arterial autologous BM-MNC transplantation for acute ischemic stroke.