Efficacy of a cultured conditioned medium of exfoliated deciduous dental pulp stem cells in erectile dysfunction patients

• Published in: Journal of cellular and molecular medicine Vol. 26; no. 1; pp. 195 - 201
• Main Authors: Koga, Shoji, Horiguchi, Yutaka
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.01.2022; John Wiley and Sons Inc
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Culture Media, Conditioned - pharmacology; Dental Pulp; Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus; Endothelial Cells; Erectile dysfunction; Erectile Dysfunction - drug therapy; exfoliated deciduous dental pulp; Good Manufacturing Practice; Humans; Hypertension; International Index of Erectile Function; Male; Medicine; Middle Aged; Original; Patients; Penile Erection - physiology; Penis; Pilot Projects; Sexual intercourse; Stem Cells; stem cell‐derived growth factor; Teeth; Testosterone; vascular endothelial cells; exfoliated deciduous dental pulp; vascular endothelial cells; stem cell-derived growth factor; International Index of Erectile Function; erectile dysfunction
• ISSN: 1582-1838; 1582-4934
• DOI: 10.1111/jcmm.17072

Majority of current treatment strategies against erectile dysfunction (ED) has been consisted of only a supportive care to sustain enough erection during a sexual intercourse. In this study, we investigated whether the cultured conditioned medium of human exfoliated deciduous dental pulp stem cells (SHED‐CM) had an ability to treat ED through fundamentally repairing the pathological damage of vascular endothelial cells of the corpus cavernosum. An open‐label pilot study was performed from April 2016 to October 2020. SHED‐CM was injected directly into the corpus cavernosum of penis of 38 ED patients who visited our clinic and fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Efficacy was assessed using the simplified International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF‐5) questionnaire. The average age and initial IIEF‐5 score of the patients enrolled in this study was 56 (31–79) years old and 13.1 (5–20) points, respectively. Medical history revealed 7 patients with diabetes, 7 patients with hypertension and 1 patient with priapism undergone shunt operation. Of these, 37 patients (97.4%) showed an improvement in IIEF‐5 of an average of 19.3 (7–25) points or 64.4 (10–300) % increase after three injections of SHED‐CM. Eighteen patients (47.4%) achieved more than 21 points (no ED) in IIEF‐5. No adverse events were encountered. This is the first clinical report of ED treatment in the literatures evaluating the efficacy of SHED‐CM. Treatment with SHED‐CM is expected to repair vascular damages of the corpus cavernosum, which are the main cause of ED, and to be widely spread as a fundamental clinical application for ED.