Currently, most studies of stem cell therapies are conducted on small groups of mice, rats and other animals. As a result, scientists’ ability to extrapolate their findings to human patients is somewhat limited. The recent PLOS Biology study sought to get around some of the basic limitations of previous research by carefully analyzing just over 150 stem cell studies.
The authors discovered that stem cell treatments do, in fact, impact patients’ chances of regaining motor and sensory function. Overall, the use of these therapies resulted in a 25 percent improvement in test subjects.