Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis With Allogeneic Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Osteoarthritis is the most prevalent joint disease and a common cause of joint pain, functional loss, and disability. Conventional treatments demonstrate only modest clinical benefits without lesion reversal. Autologous mesenchymal stromal cell (MSC) treatments have shown feasibility, safety, and strong indications for clinical efficacy. We performed a randomized, active control trial to assess the feasibility and safety of treating osteoarthritis with allogeneic MSCs, and we obtain information regarding the efficacy of this treatment.

We randomized 30 patients with chronic knee pain unresponsive to conservative treatments and showing radiological evidence of osteoarthritis into 2 groups of 15 patients. The test group was treated with allogeneic bone marrow MSCs by intra-articular injection of 40 × 10(6) cells. The control group received intra-articular hyaluronic acid (60 mg, single dose). Clinical outcomes were followed for 1 year and included evaluations of pain, disability, and quality of life. Articular cartilage quality was assessed by quantitative magnetic resonance imaging T2 mapping.