Parkinson's disease: fetal cell or stem cell-derived treatments.

Introduction: The mean age of onset of Parkinson's disease is about 65 years, with a median time of 9 years between diagnosis and death.

Methods and outcomes: We conducted a systematic review and aimed to answer the following clinical question: What are the effects of fetal cell or stem cell-derived therapy in people with Parkinson's disease? We searched: Medline, Embase, The Cochrane Library and other important databases up to September 2014 (Clinical Evidence reviews are updated periodically; please check our website for the most up-to-date version of this review). We included harms alerts from relevant organisations such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Results: We found two studies that met our inclusion criteria. We performed a GRADE evaluation of the quality of evidence for interventions.

Conclusions: In this systematic review we present information relating to the effectiveness and safety of the following interventions: fetal cell therapy versus deep brain stimulation; fetal cell therapy versus sham surgery; stem cell-derived therapy versus deep brain stimulation; stem cell-derived therapy versus sham surgery.