# Stem cell clinics and stem cell tourism

Source: https://onco.cc/technologies/rejuv-frontier-stem-cell-tourism/  
OnCo record `rejuv-frontier-stem-cell-tourism` (Technology). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Clinics at home and abroad sell stem cell infusions and injections to people finishing cancer treatment. The FDA has recorded blindness, tumour formation and infections from these products, and says plainly that if you are being charged for one outside a clinical trial you are likely being deceived. Two of the harms are written up in the New England Journal of Medicine.

## Summary

The industry is large and domestic, not only foreign. A 2016 survey of internet marketing identified widespread promotion of unapproved stem cell interventions by businesses based in the United States, and a follow-up found that a cohort of 570 clinics had changed substantially within three years while the total number grew. Treatments are sold for fatigue, immune recovery, neuropathy, 'anti-ageing' and, at the worst end, for the cancer itself.

The FDA's consumer page states that unapproved products marketed as regenerative medicine, whether taken from the person's own body or someone else's, include stem cells, stromal vascular fraction, umbilical cord blood, amniotic fluid, Wharton's jelly, ortho-biologics and exosomes, and that it "has received reports of blindness, tumor formation, infections, and more" from their use. It adds: "if you are being charged for these products or offered these products outside of a clinical trial, you are likely being deceived and offered a product illegally", and warns that registration of a study on clinicaltrials.gov is often presented as if it were FDA approval, which it is not.

Two case reports show what the harms look like. Three women with age-related macular degeneration lost vision after intravitreal injection of autologous adipose-derived cells at a clinic; the report is in the New England Journal of Medicine. A man who had received intrathecal injections of mesenchymal, embryonic and fetal neural stem cells at clinics in China, Argentina and Mexico developed a glioproliferative lesion of the spinal cord, also reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. In the UK, a cell therapy is an advanced therapy medicinal product and the MHRA requires a marketing authorisation for anything placed on the market; the hospital exemption is narrow and still needs a manufacturer's licence.

There is one setting in which stem cells are standard cancer care, and it is the transplant ward: autologous and allogeneic haematopoietic transplant, done in a licensed centre, for a defined indication. That is not what a clinic is selling.

## Fields

- Kind: Technology
- Status: emerging
- Last checked: 2026-10-02
- Tags: rejuvenation; survivorship; evidence:harm; unproven; regulator-warning
- Principle: There is no mechanism to state, because the products are not characterised: source tissue, cell type, dose, viability and sterility differ between clinics and are usually not disclosed. The harms reported follow from that, and from injecting live cells into compartments such as the eye and the spinal canal where they can proliferate or scar.
- Strengths: Haematopoietic stem cell transplant, the one licensed use in cancer, is genuinely curative for defined indications
- Limitations: FDA has reports of blindness, tumour formation and infections from unapproved products; Published case reports of vision loss and of a spinal cord lesion after treatment at such clinics; No characterisation of what is being injected, so no dose, no potency and no sterility assurance; Sold privately, not funded by the NHS or any national system, because no regulator has approved these uses; Registration of a study on a trial registry is marketed as if it were approval

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell_therapy
- FDA: Important patient and consumer information about regenerative medicine therapies (3 June 2021): https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/consumers-biologics/important-patient-and-consumer-information-about-regenerative-medicine-therapies
- Kuriyan et al., Vision loss after intravitreal injection of autologous "stem cells" for AMD (NEJM 2017): https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa1609583
- Berkowitz et al., Glioproliferative lesion of the spinal cord as a complication of "stem-cell tourism" (NEJM 2016): https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc1600188
- Turner and Knoepfler, Selling stem cells in the USA: assessing the direct-to-consumer industry (Cell Stem Cell 2016): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2016.06.007
- Knoepfler, Rapid change of a cohort of 570 unproven stem cell clinics in the USA over 3 years (Regen Med 2019): https://doi.org/10.2217/rme-2019-0064
- MHRA: Advanced therapy medicinal products, regulation and licensing in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/advanced-therapy-medicinal-products-regulation-and-licensing-in-uk

## Connected records

- technologies: [Allogeneic stem cell transplantation](https://onco.cc/technologies/allogeneic-hsct/), [Alternative medicine used instead of standard treatment](https://onco.cc/technologies/alternative-medicine-instead-of-treatment/), [Autologous stem cell transplant (high-dose therapy)](https://onco.cc/technologies/autologous-stem-cell-transplant/), [Exosome injections](https://onco.cc/technologies/rejuv-frontier-exosome-injections/), [Mesenchymal stromal cells for tissue damage](https://onco.cc/technologies/rejuv-frontier-mesenchymal-stromal-cells/), [What actually works after treatment](https://onco.cc/technologies/rejuv-frontier-what-works/)
- fronts: [Recovery & Rejuvenation](https://onco.cc/fronts/rejuvenation/), [Supportive Care & Survivorship](https://onco.cc/fronts/supportive-care/)
- terms: [Late effects and survivorship toxicity](https://onco.cc/terms/late-effects/)
- bottlenecks: [Survivorship and late effects are neglected](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-survivorship/)

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