Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Treatment of Poor Graft Function After Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation(allo-HSCT) can cure many hematologic diseases. Although good progress has been made in the prevention and treatment of side effects associated with transplantation, poor graft function (PGF) remains an important complication that occurs in 5-27% of patients, and is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality related to infections or hemorrhagic complications. Treatment of PGF usually involves the prescription of hematopoietic growth factors such as granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF), or repeat transplantation, but these methods are associated with short-term effect and a significant risk of graft-versus-host disease（GVHD） development, respectively.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are a form of multipotent adult stem cells that can be isolated from bone marrow (BM), adipose tissue, and cord blood. Clinical applications of human MSCs are evolving rapidly with goals of improving hematopoietic engraftment, preventing and treating graft-versus-host disease after allo-HSCT and so on. However, the efficacy of treatment of PGF that develops after allo-HSCT using expanded BM-derived MSCs from a third-party donor is rarely reported. If such treatment could be shown to be effective and safe, BM-derived MSCs could potentially be used as an universal donor material. This would have a major impact because the generation of donor-specific MSCs is time-consuming, costly, and often impractical if the clinical status of a patient is urgent.

In the present study, the investigators will prospectively evaluate the efficacy and safety of ex-vivo-expanded BM-derived MSCs from third-party donors in treating patients with PGF after allo-HSCT.