Abstract: Objective To investigate the safety of autologous bone marrow stem cells or umbilical cord blood stem cells transplantation in treatment of patients with decompensated cirrhosis through hepatic artery and the improvement in liver function and prothrombin activity in a short term. Methods Sixty-five patients with decompensated cirrhosis were randomly divided into bone marrow group（33 cases） and umbilicus cord blood group （32 cases）;patients in bone marrow group received autologous bone marrow stem cells transplantation through hepatic artery and the umbilicus cord blood group received umbilical cord blood stem cells through the same way;the changes of serum alanine aminotransferase,total bilirubin,prothrombin activity,albumin and alpha-fetoprotein after 8 weeks were determined,and the improvement in symptoms and postoperative adverse reactions were observed. ResultsThree days after cell transplantation,patients in both groups achieved significantly improvement in symptom such as fatigue and anorexia but had no significantly difference between the two groups. At eight weeks post therapy,in patients of bone marrow group and umbilicus group,serum albumin level increased significantly from the baseline of （31.0±4.6） g/L to （34.6±7.1）g/L and（26.6±8.0）g/L to（37.8±8.3）g/L, prothrombin activity from （48.8±13.4） % to （55.5±11.2）% and（47.5±12.5） to（58.9±14.0）%,but the improvement did not differ between the two groups;alanine aminotransferase,total bilirubin and alpha-fetoprotein were（45.6±12.3） IU/L,（28.1±13.5）μmol/L and（11.3±4.1）μg/L respectively in patients of bone marrow group and （47.2±11.8） IU/L,（30.7±14.8） μmol/L and（9.8±35） μg/L respectively in patients of umbilical group at 8 weeks post therapy,but the improvement did not differ between groups. Conclusions It is safe and effective in treatment of patients with decompensated cirrhosis using autologous bone marrow stem cells and umbilical cord blood stem cells transplantation through hepatic artery and no significant difference was observed between the two group.

Key words: Cirrhosis, Autologous bone marrow stem cells, Umbilical cord blood stem cells, Cell transplantation, Efficacy