The Promise of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Therapy for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Caused by COVID-19

The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) since Dec 2019, known as COVID-19 or 19-nCoV, has led to a major concern of the potential for not only an epidemic but a pandemic in China and now it seems to be a public health problem all over the world. The general mortality rate of the COVID-19 was about 3%. However, the mortality risk seems to be a significant increase in elderly and cases with chronic disease, who are more likely to develop into acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). There still lacks effective methods for ARDS of COVID-19 patients and the prognosis was poor. Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) based treatment has the advantage of targeting numerous pathophysiological components of ARDS by secreting a series of cell factors, exerting anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, immunomodulatory, antiapoptotic, and proangiogenic effects, resulting in significant structural and functional recovery following ARDS in various preclinical models. Recently, pilot clinical studies indicated MSCs based therapy was promise in treatment of ARDS caused by SARS-CoV-2. However, little is known about MSCs therapy for ARDS caused by COVID-19.