Development of Stem Cell Therapy in Indonesia

Development of Stem Cell Therapy in Indonesia
Currently, the hospital that provides stem cell therapy services is Dr. Central General Hospital. Cipto Mangunkusumo in Jakarta and Dr. Soetomo in Surabaya.

The most frequently treated cases with stem cell are diabetes mellitus, knee joint pain, stroke , heart disease. The rest are liver, nerve and other dangerous blood diseases.

Based on the Regulation of the Minister of Health of the Republic of Indonesia (Permenkes) No. 32 of 2018 , stem cells made from animal or plant embryos are not permitted. The reason is because stem cells from this source have a 20 percent risk of developing teratoma cancer, the potential for body rejection is also large, and are considered inconsistent with ethical values.

Therefore, the stem cells currently used come from adult stem cells or the patient's own body tissue, such as the spinal cord.

Apart from the two hospitals above, there are two laboratories that have obtained permission from the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia to develop cord blood stem cell therapy, namely ReGeniC owned by PT Bifarma Adiluhung (Kalbe Group) in Jakarta and the Dermama Laboratory owned by PT Dermama Biotechnology in Solo .

The bank for storing umbilical cord blood stem cells is supported by ProSTEM or Prodia StemCell Indonesia, Jakarta.

Are there any side effects from stem cell therapy?

Even though it has great potential in treating dangerous diseases, stem cell therapy also has side effects. Moreover, research on stem cells is still ongoing. Side effects that may appear include:

Triggers an immune response to attack the body itself due to a rejection reaction to cells that are considered foreign objects by the body
Can grow irregularly or specialize in different cell types spontaneously. As a result, stem cells do not grow into the desired cells
Tumor growth
Stem cell therapy whose effectiveness has not been proven can cause dangerous side effects so it is not safe to use for treatment. There was a case where a patient went blind due to a stem cell injection into the eye.

Now, you know more about stem cell therapy, right? It is hoped that, in the next one to two decades, stem cell therapy can be perfected and become a solution for the treatment of various dangerous diseases.