Intra-articular injection of two different doses of autologous bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells versus hyaluronic acid in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis: long-term follow up of a multicenter randomized controlled clinical trial (phase I/II)

Lamo-Espinosa JM, Mora G, Blanco JF, et al. · Journal of Translational Medicine

At 4 years both cell-dose groups maintained pain and WOMAC improvements vs control (median VAS 2-3 vs 7; P=.043 and .004) — one of the few durability signals for a cell injection.

Population

4-year extended follow-up of the same 30-patient cohort

Intervention

Autologous BM-MSCs (10 or 100 million) plus HA

Comparator

HA alone

Limitations

Tiny arms (n=10); attrition over 4 years; open-label follow-up.