Intra-Arterial Delivery of Cell Therapies for Stroke

Developing Cellular Therapies for Stroke

“…While the foregoing discussion has concentrated on intravenous delivery, there is also intense investigation to more selectively deliver cells to the brain by intra-arterial injection mostly involving carotid injections 25 . Intra-arterial delivery carries the potential advantage of selectively targeting cells to specific brain regions using a lower number of cells in a more concentrated volume but may pose risk for microvascular plugging and subsequent ischemic injury 26 .…”

Biomaterials Application in Stem Cell Therapies for Stroke

“…Endovascular delivery of stem/progenitor cells, either intra-arterial or intravenous injection of stem/progenitor cells, has been subject of many experimental and some clinical studies. Experiments have shown the injected cells are attracted to the stroke site and promote functional recovery [35,38]. While endovascular injection of cells presents a feasible method for multiple sessions of cell therapy, it seeds the entire body with transplanted cells.…”

“…Moreover, intravenous injection of cells leads to entrapment of cells into internal organs [46] and, in some cases, no migration to the brain lesions takes place [47]. Although a directed delivery is possible with intra-arterial injections, cell engraftment is still not ideal [38]. This low yield of cell delivery to the site of stroke can explain the limited efficiency of intravascular method in promoting recovery that is observed in few experiments directly comparing intravascular cell injection with a direct intraparenchymal cell delivery [47,48].…”

Devices for cell transplantation into the central nervous system: Design considerations and emerging technologies

“…Similarly, intraarterial delivery methods have been investigated as a way of targeting cell-based therapies to ischemic regions for the treatment of stroke. [2854] Such an approach, however, is limited to specific vascular territories (which may include non-target regions) and may also depend upon a disrupted BBB. Thus, with current technologies, cell transplantation to specific CNS regions in general requires some form of direct injection into the neural tissue.…”