Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Mar 6, 2021; 9(7): 1705-1713
Published online Mar 6, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i7.1705
Human menstrual blood-derived stem cells as immunoregulatory therapy in COVID-19: A case report and review of the literature
Juan Lu, Zhong-Yang Xie, Dan-Hua Zhu, Lan-Juan Li
Juan Lu, Zhong-Yang Xie, Dan-Hua Zhu, Lan-Juan Li, State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310003, Zhejiang Province, China
Author contributions: Li LJ and Lu J designed the study; Lu J and Xie ZY performed the laboratory work, statistics, and drafting of the manuscript; Zhu DH participated in the experiments and revised the manuscripts; all of the authors read and approved the submitted manuscript.
Supported by Zhejiang Basic Public Welfare Research Program, No. LQ20H030012.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest related to this manuscript.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The CARE Checklist statement has been uploaded.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Lan-Juan Li, FAASLD, Attending Doctor, Chairman, State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, No. 79 Qingchun Road, Hangzhou 310003, Zhejiang Province, China. ljli@zju.edu.cn
Received: October 23, 2020
Peer-review started: October 23, 2020
First decision: November 20, 2020
Revised: December 24, 2020
Accepted: January 6, 2021
Article in press: January 6, 2021
Published online: March 6, 2021
Abstract
BACKGROUND

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by novel coronavirus 2019 in December 2019 has spread all around the globe and has caused a pandemic. There is still no current effective guidance on the clinical management of COVID-19. Mesenchymal stem cell therapy has been shown to be one of the therapeutic approaches to alleviate pneumonia and symptoms through their immunomo-dulatory effect in COVID-19 patients.

CASE SUMMARY

We describe the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Hangzhou to explore the role of human menstrual blood-derived stem cells (MenSCs) in the treatment of COVID-19. Moreover, we review the immunomodulation effect including non-specific and specific immune functions of MenSCs for the therapy of COVID-19.

CONCLUSION

MenSCs can be helpful to find a promising therapeutic approach for COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19, Human menstrual blood-derived stem cells, Immunoregulatory therapy, Inflammatory response, Cytokine storm, Case report

Core Tip: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is the word that certainly will not be forgotten by everybody who lives in the first half of the twenty-first century. It has led many researchers from different biomedical fields to find solutions or treatments to manage the pandemic. However, there is still no current effective guidance on the clinical management of COVID-19. Mesenchymal stem cells are widely used to treat tissue and organ injuries with effective immunomodulatory and repair capacities, which makes them ideal for allogenic adoptive transfer therapy. In this study, we describe the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Hangzhou, China to explore the role of human menstrual blood-derived stem cells (MenSCs) in the treatment of COVID-19. Moreover, we review the immunomodulation effect including non-specific and specific immune functions of MenSCs for the therapy of COVID-19, which can be helpful to find a promising therapeutic approach for this disease.