Cell-based therapy for liver diseases

Although liver transplantation has become standard therapy in the treatment of patients with liver failure, several problems should be considered in the management of these patients. Other approaches have been proposed, in particular cellular-based procedures. Isolated hepatocytes may be used instead of whole organ transplantation or integrated within the bioartificial devices, in order to replace the missing synthetic and metabolic liver functions. Moreover patient's own hepatocytes may be ex vivo genetically modified to provide the function of a mutant gene. However, new cell sources alternative to adult hepatocytes are actually under investigation, on the basis of recent advances in the field of liver repopulation. Xenogenic primary cells, human hepatoma cells, immortalized hepatocytes and stem cells have been testing in several experiments, even if up to now none of them represent a "gold-standard" for cell-based treatment of liver diseases. In the next future, it is possible that different clinical situations will require different therapeutic approaches, that will be finally defined from the concomitant advances in the development of artificial devices and liver cell biology.