Cellular Therapy in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Despite significant advances in understanding the biology of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), the underlying etiology is still unknown, and currently available treatment options are not curative. Furthermore, even after the advent of multiple targeted "advanced" therapies, approximately one-third of patients do not respond to treatment, and approximately half of patients lose response over time. As a result, there have been efforts made to seek alternative treatment options. In recent years, there have been major advances made in the field of cellular therapy, involving administration of living cells to patients. Notably, the area with the most evidence base to date has been stem cell therapy, with data generated for both mesenchymal and hematopoietic stem cells. More recently, there have also been emerging data exploring the use of chimeric antigen receptor T cells and regulatory T cells. As the landscape for cellular therapy expands in the coming years, an important next step will be to understand which patients may or may not benefit from these therapies and at what point these treatment options might be considered in the disease course of IBD.