Allogenic Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Secretome for Knee Osteoarthritis: A Clinical Efficacy, Imaging and Safety Study

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a disease that causes disability, limited joint movement, and limitations in daily activities. No agreed-upon therapy or procedure has been proven to prevent the damage caused by osteoarthritis. However, research on the use of conditioned media in experimental animals demonstrated healing of cartilage defects, as proven by macroscopic, microscopic, and immunohistochemical analysis. Materials and Methods: The research was conducted at Dr. Moewardi General Hospital, Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia. This was a translational clinical trial that included patients with Kellgren-Lawrence grade 2-3 knee joint OA (n=10) treated with intra-articular injections of umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell-conditioned media. Injections were administered five times at one-week intervals. Patients were evaluated at 2, 4, and 6 months. The data collected included KOOS, KSS, and WOMAC scores, as well as MRI T2 mapping sequence (CartiGram) examination. Results: Functional score assessment using KOOS, KSS, and WOMAC showed significant differences between pre-treatment scores and those at the 2nd, 4th, and 6th months post-treatment. However, there were no significant differences between the scores at the 2nd and 4th months, or between the 4th and 6th months. MRI T2 mapping sequence (CartiGram) showed improvement in cartilage signal in all samples. Conclusion: Allogenic umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell-conditioned media therapy led to improvement in cartilage quality on MRI T2 mapping sequence (CartiGram) and in knee functional scores. No patients experienced direct side effects from the therapy.