Background: Currently, ongoing trials of mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) therapies for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been reported.
Aim: In this study, we investigated whether MSCs have therapeutic efficacy in novel COVID-19 patients.
Methods: Search terms included stem cell, MSC, umbilical cord blood, novel coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 and COVID-19, applied to PubMed, the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, EMBASE and Web of Science.
Results: A total of 13 eligible clinical trials met our inclusion criteria with a total of 548 patients. The analysis showed no significant decrease in C-reactive protein (CRP) levels after stem cell therapy (P = 0.11). A reduction of D-dimer levels was also not observed in patients after stem cell administration (P = 0.82). Furthermore, interleukin 6 (IL-6) demonstrated no decrease after stem cell therapy (P = 0.45). Finally, we investigated the overall survival (OS) rate after stem cell therapy in COVID-19 patients. There was a significant improvement in OS after stem cell therapy; the OS of enrolled patients who received stem cell therapy was 90.3%, whereas that of the control group was 79.8% (P = 0.02).
Conclusion: Overall, our analysis suggests that while MSC therapy for COVID-19 patients does not significantly decrease inflammatory markers such as CRP, D-dimer and IL-6, OS is improved.
Keywords: COVID-19; Mesenchymal stem cells; Meta-analysis; Stem cell.
©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.