Abstract
ObjectiveTreatment for COVID-19 is still urgent need for the critically ill and severe cases. UC-MSC administration has a therapeutic benefit for severe COVID-19 patients even in the recovery period. In this paper, we aimed to present our clinical experience with UC-MSC treatment in severe and critical severe COVID-19 patients.MethodsIn this study we evaluated the clinical outcome of severe/critically severe 210 COVID-19 patients treated with UC-MSCs, 1-2×106 per kilogram to 210 patients from 15/10/2020 until 25/04/2021. ResultsOut of 99 critically severe intubated patients we have observed good clinical progress/discharged from ICU in 52 (52.5%) patients. Where as 86 (77.5%) of 111 severe unintubated patients discharged from ICU. Intubated 47 (47.5%) patients and unintubated 25 (22.5%) patients pass away. Significantly higher survival was observed in patients who underwent UC-MSCs before intubation (OR=1.475, 95% CI=1.193-1.824 p<0.001). It was observed that the SaO2 parameter tended to improve after UC-MSC therapy compared to all groups. But SaO2 parameter between intubated and unintubated groups was not statistically significant (p>0.05), while in discharged cases SaO2 parameter was statistically significant (p= 0.01). Besides, there was a statistically significant relation with intubation status, age (OR= 3.868, 95% CI=0.574-7.152 p=0.02) and weigh (OR=6.768, 95% CI=3.423-10.112 p<0.001) thus presented an elevated risk for COVID-19. The linear regression analysis confirmed that the high weight was associated with the risk of intubation in COVID-19 (p=0.001). ConclusionsAccording to our results and from recent studies, UC-MSC treatment is safe with high potential to be used as an added therapeutic treatment for severe COVID-19 patients. Our experience showed that UC-MSC therapy may restore oxygenation and downregulate cytokine storm in patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19. We advice wider randomised studies to discover the detailed therapeutic pathophysiology of the MSCs on COVID-19 patients.