Industry affiliation does not predict outcomes of randomized controlled trials for mesenchymal stem cells in knee osteoarthritis.

Background: This research aims to determine the influence of industry on the outcomes of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for Mesenchymal Stem Cell (MSC) treatments in knee osteoarthritis (OA).
Methods: PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched from 2010 onwards using the terms "knee osteoarthritis" and "mesenchymal stem cells". After identifying relevant RCTs, studies were categorized as industry-affiliated or non-industry-affiliated. They were also classified as favorable if they achieved statistically significant (p < 0.05) results with MSC injections compared to control. Chi-squared tests were employed to analyze the relationship between industry affiliation and study outcome.
Results: Post exclusion criteria, 38 studies were analyzed. Of these, there were 20 (52.6%) industry affiliated (IA) and 18 (47.4%) non-industry affiliated (NIA) studies. Among the 20 IA studies, 17 (85.0%) reported favorable outcomes for MSC treatment arm, with the remaining 3 (15.0%) showing analogous (no difference between treatment arms) results. For the 18 NIA studies, 15 (83.3%) were favorable, and 3 (16.6%) were analogous. No significant difference in outcomes was observed between IA and NIA studies (p = 0.888). Analysis of patient reported outcomes also revealed no significant difference. Of note, studies using allogeneic MSCs were more likely to be IA than studies using autologous MSCs (p = 0.005) CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated no strong association between industry affiliation and the outcomes of RCTs for MSC treatments in knee OA. Despite this, the potential influence of industry ties should always be considered when applying study findings to new treatment modalities for patient care.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: ‘Frank A Petrigliano reports a relationship with Exactech Inc that includes: consulting or advisory. Frank A Petrigliano reports a relationship with Stryker Orthopaedics that includes: consulting or advisory. Frank A Petrigliano reports a relationship with OSSIO Inc that includes: consulting or advisory. Joseph N Liu reports a relationship with Stryker Orthopaedics that includes: speaking and lecture fees. Joseph N Liu reports a relationship with Innocoll Biotherapeutics NA Inc that includes: travel reimbursement. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.’.
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