Trial reportBMC musculoskeletal disorders2025
Intra-articular injection of umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells is safe and effective for moderate to severe knee osteoarthritis with synovitis: a double‑blinded and randomized controlled trial.
Trial report in BMC musculoskeletal disorders, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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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.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- MSC-Hydrogel Composite Systems for Knee Cartilage Repair and Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review.Gels (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Body mass index, weight bearing, and delayed union after femoral shaft fracture nailing: a retrospective cohort study.European journal of orthopaedic surgery & traumatology : orthopedie traumatologie · 2026Article
- Cord blood mesenchymal stromal cells combined with hyaluronic acid show symptom-modifying and potential disease-modifying effects in an equine osteoarthritis fetlock chip model.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesTo evaluate the safety and clinical efficacy of intra-articular injection of human umbilical cord–derived mesenchymal stem cells (UC-MSCs) for knee osteoarthritis (KOA).
methodsThis was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-control trial consisting of 3 arms including placebo, hyaluronic acid (HA), and UC-MSCs. 69 individuals were screened, with 55 participants subsequently randomized. The primary endpoint was the safety after injection. The secondary endpoints were improvements in visual analog scale (VAS), Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), Knee Society Clinical Rating System (KSS), EuroQol five-dimensional questionnaire (EQ-5D), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations at 6-month after injection.
resultsAdverse events (AEs) did not demonstrate significant differences among the groups. No serious treatment-related AEs were observed. Compared with placebo and HA, injection of UC-MSCs resulted in a greater improvement in VAS and EQ-5D; however, the differences were not statistically significant. Patients in the UC-MSCs group exhibited significant improvement in synovitis at the 6-month follow-up as compared with the placebo and HA groups (P = 0.003). At 6 months, UC-MSCs injection showed significantly better improvements in VAS (P = 0.011), WOMAC (P = 0.014), and EQ-5D scores (P = 0.049) in patients with KOA incorporating synovitis, particularly those experiencing moderate to severe pain. MRI indicated no significant difference in change of joint structures among the groups, except for the synovium.
conclusionsTreatment with UC-MSCs was shown to be a viable therapeutic option for KOA combined with synovitis, showing clinical improvement at the end of follow-up, especially in those with moderate to severe pain. Further phase III clinical trials would be required to confirm the efficacy.
trial registrationThe trial was registered at chictr.org on October 13, 2020, with the registration number ChiCTR2000039017.
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