Autologous vs. allogeneic MSCs in RCTs
RCTs investigating autologous MSCs made up the majority (9/15) of the studies reviewed, while the remaining (6/15) studies investigated MSCs of allogeneic origin. The autologous tissue of origin was split between bone marrow (5/9) and adipose tissue (4/9), while allogeneic sources were split between adipose tissue (2/6) and bone marrow (2/6). The remaining allogeneic trials used MSCs from Wharton’s jelly (1/6) or the placenta (1/6). Most of the dose escalation trials (3/4) used allogeneic MSC sources, while the three repeat injection trials were divided two-to-one between autologous and allogeneic MSCs [In 5/6 of the MSC allogeneic trials, there was a significant improvement in PROMs (WOMAC, KOOS, and KSCRS scores) relative to the control groups. This was true regardless of doses ranging as low as 3.9 × 10Similarly, in 8/9 RCTs using autologous MSCs, there was significant improvement in PROMs [In summary, the 15 RCTs with 610 treated patients showed positive effects of MSCs relative to control treatments at 12-month timepoints in terms of PROMs. However, clear distinctions are not apparent in regard to dose dependencies, MSC tissue of origin, and autologous or allogeneic MSC sources. We did note that in 7/9 autologous MSC trials, moderate to high (10 × 10