Inflammatory bowel disease is a group of inflammatory conditions of the colon and small intestine. Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are the main types of inflammatory bowel disease (198). Crohn's disease is a granulomatous disease that can reach any part of the gastrointestinal tract, from the mouth to the anus. In the Crohn's disease, the terminal ileum and the cervix are the most frequently affected areas. The clinical presentation of the disease can range from recurrent bouts of diarrhea, fever, severe abdominal pain, weight loss and of systemic complications, drastically affecting individual's quality of life (199). Ulcerative colitis, however, is an idiopathic inflammation that specifically affects the cervix and rectum. Clinically, the ulcerative colitis is characterized by episodes of recurrent bloody diarrhea, followed by tenesmus and severe abdominal cramps. In contrast to Chron's disease, in the ulcerative colitis the ulceration does not reach the muscular layer of the mucosa and the inflammation is limited to the mucosa and the lamina propria (200). The symptoms observed in Crohn's disease result from an altered intestinal immune system response that triggers the excessive release of cytokines such as TNF-α, IFN-γ, IL-12, IL-13, and IL-17, secreted by Th1 cells. On the other hand, the IL-4 and IL-5 cytokines involved in ulcerative colitis are secreted by Th2 cells (201). The initial alteration in the mucosa and submucosa tunics arises from the infiltration of inflammatory cells in the crypts of Lieberkuhn (202). Inflammatory bowel diseases were treated with hMSCs in 21 (99–117, 155, 156) out of the 132 articles analyzed. In two studies (116, 117), bone marrow-derived hMSCs were used for the treatment of Crohn's disease in humans. In the other 19 (99–115, 155, 156) articles analyzed, hMSCs were used for the treatment of experimental colitis in animal models. Among them, 16 (99–115, 155, 156) used mice and three (108, 111, 112) used pigs as the experimental model. Regarding the source of the hMSCs used, in seven studies (100, 101, 103, 107, 113, 115, 155) hMSCs were isolated from the umbilical cord. Furthermore, hMSCs were isolated from the bone marrow (99, 102, 108, 109, 111, 112) and adipose tissue (100, 103, 104, 106, 110, 156) in six studies each. The menstrual blood (105), dental pulp (114) and gingival (99) was chosen as the source of hMSCs in only one study each. In two studies (102, 103), hMSCs were obtained from the directed differentiation of embryonic stem cells.