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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Cell. Neurosci.
Sec. Cellular Neuropathology
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fncel.2025.1532219
This article is part of the Research Topic The Role of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Transforming Organ Repair and Tissue Regeneration View all articles
Assessment of mesenchymal stem cells for the treatment of spinal cord injury: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted- 1 Shandong XianDai University, Jinan, China
- 2 Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China
Objective: This study aims to explore the clinical efficacy of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) transplantation in the treatment of patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) through a network meta-analysis, and to discuss the optimal transplantation strategy for treatment.: We conducted a computer search of clinical randomized controlled studies on MSC treatment for SCI in databases including PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Chinese Science and Technology Journal Database (VIP), Wanfang Database, and Chinese Biomedical Literature Service System (SinoMed) up to March 2024. Two researchers independently completed literature screening and data extraction according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria and used RevMan 5.4 software to assess the quality of the included studies. Network meta-analysis was performed using Stata 16.0 software.Results: A total of 18 studies were included in the analysis. The results showed that MSCs significantly improved motor, sensory, and activities of daily living after SCI. Network meta-analysis indicated that umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (UCMSCs) were the most effective cell source, and intrathecal injection (IT) was the optimal transplantation method.The study suggests that the current use of UCMSCs for IT transplantation may be the best transplantation strategy for improving functional impairment after SCI. Further high-quality studies are still needed to further validate the results of this study to ensure the reliability of the results.
Keywords: spinal cord injury, Mesenchymal Stem Cells, Intrathecal injection, Cell Transplantation, Network meta-analysis
Received: 22 Nov 2024; Accepted: 27 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, 王, Yan, Sun and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Runfang Wang, Shandong XianDai University, Jinan, China
Jinqing Sun, Shandong XianDai University, Jinan, China
Tianyu Zhang, Shandong XianDai University, Jinan, China
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