Evidence map›Paper›PMID 28452204›Full record

ArticleStem cells translational medicine2017

Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Time to Change the Name!

Arnold I Caplan

Registry-linked trialAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Stem cells translational medicine, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06415461 (A Phase 1, Open Label Dose-Ranging Study to Assess the Safety, Tolerability, Preliminary Efficacy, and Dose Effect of CFL001 Cord Blood Product in Patients With Symptomatic Sacroiliac Joint Syndrome), which is not on this map. Cited by 617 papers, 8 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
617citing papers in PubMed, 8 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

NCT06415461 phase1active not recruitingnot on this mapstarted 2024, after this paper: background citation

A Phase 1, Open Label Dose-Ranging Study to Assess the Safety, Tolerability, Preliminary Efficacy, and Dose Effect of CFL001 Cord Blood Product in Patients With Symptomatic Sacroiliac Joint Syndrome

TypeinterventionalSponsorUniversity of FloridaRan2024 to 2028Enrolled9ConditionsSacroiliac, Backache, Pain, BackArmsPremierMaxCB®-Platinum (CFL001)
3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

617 citing papers in PubMed, 8 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
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  12. Stem Cell-Based Therapies for Central Nervous System Demyelinating Diseases: Clinical Evidence, Therapeutic Niches, and Translational Boundaries.Medical science monitor : international medical journal of experimental and clinical research · 2026
    Review
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557 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Arnold I CaplanSkeletal Research Center, Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

Funding

Bone Marrow MSCs/Pericytes: Gatekeepers Controlling Skeletal Metastasis.R01CA163562 · NCI · CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY · PI CAPLAN, ARNOLD IRWIN · 2012 to 2016
$1.6M
NCI NIH HHS R01 CA163562
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) were officially named more than 25 years ago to represent a class of cells from human and mammalian bone marrow and periosteum that could be isolated and expanded in culture while maintaining their in vitro capacity to be induced to form a variety of mesodermal phenotypes and tissues. The in vitro capacity to form bone, cartilage, fat, etc., became an assay for identifying this class of multipotent cells and around which several companies were formed in the 1990s to medically exploit the regenerative capabilities of MSCs. Today, there are hundreds of clinics and hundreds of clinical trials using human MSCs with very few, if any, focusing on the in vitro multipotential capacities of these cells. Unfortunately, the fact that MSCs are called "stem cells" is being used to infer that patients will receive direct medical benefit, because they imagine that these cells will differentiate into regenerating tissue-producing cells. Such a stem cell treatment will presumably cure the patient of their medically relevant difficulties ranging from osteoarthritic (bone-on-bone) knees to various neurological maladies including dementia. I now urge that we change the name of MSCs to Medicinal Signaling Cells to more accurately reflect the fact that these cells home in on sites of injury or disease and secrete bioactive factors that are immunomodulatory and trophic (regenerative) meaning that these cells make therapeutic drugs in situ that are medicinal. It is, indeed, the patient's own site-specific and tissue-specific resident stem cells that construct the new tissue as stimulated by the bioactive factors secreted by the exogenously supplied MSCs. Stem Cells Translational Medicine 2017;6:1445-1451.

Indexed as

AnimalsBone Marrow CellsCell DifferentiationHumansMesenchymal Stem CellsMesenchymal Stem Cell TransplantationRegenerative MedicineTissue EngineeringMedicinal signaling cellsMesenchymal stem cellsMSCsRegenerative medicine

Identifiers

PMID28452204
PMCPMC5689741

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
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Registered trials

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.