Abstract
Background: This comprehensive systematic review investigated the mil-to long-term efficacy and safety of stem cell therapy in the treatment of xerostomia. The present study aimed to systematically explore available literature on the current state of stem cell research in dentistry and its impacts on the treatment of xerostomia.
Methods: A comprehensive electronic search was conducted in the PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases for human and animal studies published until July 2022. Two independent researchers reviewed the studies based on specific eligibility criteria.
Results: Overall, 439 articles were selected after a comprehensive search. After removing unrelated items, 14 studies were selected for a systematic review. Finally, 14 studies were included in the current work, of which 6 were human clinical trial studies and 8 were animal studies. The articles were on radiation-induced salivary gland (SG) dysfunction, Sjogren syndrome (SS), SG dysfunction, ovariectomy (hypoestrogenic condition), and xerostomia. In all cases, the intervention impression was assessed by the salivary flow rate (SFR) measure, either before/after research or compared to a placebo. The first outcome was to investigate the impact of the intervention on SFR. However, other related variant variables were also extracted, including research design, tissue origin of stem cells, disease model, and participants. In addition, the available cell tracking information was recorded to evaluate the outcome of the transplanted cells. Data meta-analysis was not applied regarding the heterogeneous nature and the small number of included articles encompassing human and murine studies.
Conclusion: Stem cell therapy can be suggested as an adjunctive clinical method to treat dry mouth caused by radiation-induced xerostomia in the neck and head area, SS, hypoestrogenic conditions, and SG dysfunction.