Table 1.

Advantages and drawbacks of different types of stem cells, delivery methods and fabricated biomaterials used.

Stem cell type	Advantages	Drawbacks	Ref.
Embryonic	Clonality, self-renewal, pluripotency	Ethical concern	[3,10,12,32]
		Very sensitive to temperature and pH changes
Bone marrow derived adult stem cells	No ethical issues; widely investigated under pre-clinical and clinical settings	Access requires invasive surgery	[139]
		Isolation is required due to heterogeneous cell population
Adipose derived adult stem cells	Less invasive and painful surgery	Isolation is required due to heterogeneous cell population	[3,19,139]
Induced pluripotent	Alternative to embryonic cells	Probability of forming teratoma	[5,25]
	Availability of producing large amounts of patient-specific cells
Endothelial progenitor	Production of large amounts of growth factors and cytokines	Rare population	[31,140]
Delivery methods	Advantages	Drawbacks	Ref.
Intracoronary	No risk of systemic delivery	Low cell delivery	[35]
	Direct delivery
Intravenous	Not invasive	Cells can be isolated in lung, liver or spleen	[36,38,141]
Intramyocardial	Direct delivery	Perforation risk	[43]
Intrapericardial	Large number of cells delivered	Visceral pericardium transmigration required	[40]
Retrograde coronary sinus	Homogeneous cell delivery	Endothelial wall transmigration required	[48]
Biomaterials	Advantages	Possible concerns	Ref.
Cell sheets	Long-term survival and growth rate after implementation	Retention of implant at transplant site; integration to host tissue	[79,81]
Injectable hydrogels	Enhance stem cell retention and survivability upon injection	Suitable rheological properties of the injected materials	[142]
Porous scaffolds	Increased Vascularization	Biodegradation properties	[92]