Development of mesenchymal stem cells: therapeutic effect and prospect for rheumatoid arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic autoimmune disease, and it cannot be cured currently. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), an emerging therapeutic method, have been applied to treat RA. It is essential to learn more about RA and MSCs. A total of 1,296 records were retrieved from the Web of Science. Then, Citespace and VOSviewer were used for the scientometric analysis of the data, including national distribution, institutional distribution, author distribution, journals, funding, and keywords. Our analysis presents basic information on the research into treating RA with MSCs, identifies research hotspots, and outlines clear research directions for interested researchers. At present, research on MSCs and RA focuses on the diversity of therapeutic effects, inflammatory mechanisms, molecular mechanisms of MSCs from different sources, and extracellular vesicles of MSCs on RA. Cutting-edge research in this field is booming, and this study will promote the development of the scientific research and clinical applications of MSCs in treating RA.