Abstract
The liver is a unique organ with the ability to regenerate, but when it reaches the end stage of chronic liver disease, liver cirrhosis, the liver becomes unable to regenerate due to the fibrosis that has deposited in the liver. Although the radical treatment of decompensated cirrhosis is liver transplantation, due to a shortage of donors, etc., there is widespread development of liver regeneration therapy using mesenchymal stem cells （MSCs）, etc. There have been clinical reports of liver regeneration therapy for liver cirrhosis using autologous bone marrow-derived MSCs, and a certain level of efficacy has been suggested. We have also developed a method to improve the efficacy of liver regeneration therapy for decompensated liver cirrhosis by changing the infusion route of cultured autologous bone marrow-derived MSCs from peripheral vein to hepatic artery, and then we are currently conducting the investigator-initiated trial in our Yamaguchi university hospital.
