Mesenchymal stem cells for the adjunctive treatment of cytomegalovirus pneumonia in hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients: a Single-center prospective study.

To evaluate the efficacy of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as an adjuvant therapy for cytomegalovirus (CMV) pneumonia after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) through a prospective study. From June 2016 to June 2022, 43 patients were diagnosed with CMV pneumonia after allo-HSCT and received antiviral therapy, of whom 24 received MSCs infusion. The primary endpoints of the study were the cure rate and the time to cure of CMV pneumonia, and the secondary endpoint was the overall survival after CMV pneumonia. The 2-year overall survival post-pneumonia in MSCs group was significantly better than that in non-MSCs group (74% vs. 50%, p = 0.034). Cure rate of pneumonia in MSCs group was higher than that in non-MSCs group without statistical significance (79% vs. 63%, p = 0.245). Time (days) to cure in MSCs group was shorter than that in non-MSCs group without statistical significance (39[14-142] vs. 54[6-157], p = 0.765). The high mortality rate of CMV pneumonia after allo-HSCT leads to a poor prognosis. The use of MSCs improves the overall survival of CMV pneumonia. The cure rate and time to cure of pneumonia were not improved statistically. At present, there is still a lack of prospective studies on MSCs in the treatment of pneumonia after HSCT, which needs to be supplemented in the future.