Cell Therapy for Critical Limb Ischemia.

The authors reflect on a new approach to the treatment of patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI). They cite two studies that evaluated the efficacy of bone marrow mononuclear cell (BM-MNC) therapy for subjects with CLI namely the Therapeutic Angiogenesis using Cell Transplantation (TACT) and Intraarterial Progenitor Cell Transplantation of Bone Marrow Monocuclear Cells for Induction of Neovascularization in Patients with Peripheral Arterial Occlusive Disease (PROVASA) studies. The studies gave insights on the importance of progenitor cell phenotype.