Stem Cell Therapies for Neuropathic Pain

Evidence on the Utility of iPS Cells for the Treatment of Neuropathic Pain

There are no published data on the utility of iPS cells for the treatment of neuropathic pain; however, there has been a lot of interest in the potential utility of iPS cells in this regard. Potential uses of iPS cells include: modelling neuropathic disease processes in vitro; developing and screening candidate drugs that selectively target diseased neuronal cells with particular genetic profiles; and offering a novel paradigm of cell replacement therapy to support neuronal regeneration.

The enormous potential utility of iPS cells for the treatment of neuropathic pain is in its infancy and remains unsupported by an evidence base. In addition to the limitations of iPS cells already mentioned, a number of other problems would need to be surmounted. For example, the retention of epigenetic profiles from senescent cells may cause iPS cells, used for neuropathic pain disease modelling or therapy, to lose their differentiated properties.