Cell-based therapy for COVID-19 patients with acute respiratory syndrome (search on 30 March 2020)
Citation: Qu W, Wang Z, Hare JM, et al. Cell‐based therapy to reduce mortality from COVID‐19: Systematic review and meta‐analysis of human studies on acute respiratory distress syndrome. Stem Cells Translational Medicine. 2020;9(9):1007-22.
What is this? Cell-based therapy has been suggested as a treatment for COVID-19 induced acute respiratory syndrome (ARDS).
In this rapid review, the authors searched for studies of the safety and efficacy of therapy with mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) in adult patients diagnosed with COVID-19 pneumonia or ARDS from any cause. They did not restrict their searches by language of publication and searched for articles published between 1990 and 31 March 2020. They included four phase I clinical trials, three phase I/II or phase II randomized trials trials, one case report and one case series.
What was found: At the time of this review, the included studies showed that no serious adverse events were reported for MSC treatment and all mild adverse events related to MSC treatment resolved spontaneously.
At the time of this review, the included studies showed that MSC treatment may improve pulmonary function in patients with ARDS and may reduce the physiologic and immunologic responses leading to ARDS.
At the time of this review, the included studies showed that MSC treatment may reduce mortality rates; and the authors concluded that adequately powered clinical trials were urgently needed to test clinical outcomes in COVID-19 patients.