Mitos y realidades del uso de las células troncales en la terapia oftalmológica

During the last 20 years, stem cells became a central issue for many research groups, and the ophthalmologic field is not the exception. Under such scenario, the huge amount of available information together with contradictory results may lead to confusion; making the continuous updating by health professionals difficult and challenging. Here, we describe some of the essential properties of stem cells, as well as the intricacies associated with their use in ophthalmic therapy. It is clear that despite stem cells may be a very useful tool in the treatment of several diseases, we still ignore many of their properties as well as the mechanisms that regulate them. Also, it is significant the lack of procedures that could allow their isolation as a pure stem cell population and their subsequent controlled transplantation into patients as completely differentiated cells; facts that imply a real risk for the candidate to this kind of treatment. At present, therapies that involve the use of stem cells have focused on treatment of wet or dry AMD, as well as LSCD. However, considering the current difficulties, one can conclude that maybe it is time to pause possible additional therapeutic uses and gain a better understanding of stem cells before we continue treating ophthalmologic disease.