Mesenchymal stromal cell treatment improves outcomes in children with pneumonia post-hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: a retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is a standard therapy strategy for most malignant disorders in children. However, transplant-related pneumonia remains a major therapy challenge and mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are rarely reported in HSCT-related pneumonia. The aim of our study was to assess the efficacy of MSC for HSCT-related pneumonia in children. METHODS: We retrospectively retrieved HSCT-related (severe and non-severe) pneumonia cases (aged < 18 years), which underwent MSC treatment (MSC group) or non-MSC treatment (non-MSC group) in Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center, from December 2017 to December 2019. We investigated outcomes of the two different treatments among severe cases and non-severe cases, respectively. The primary endpoints were differences in overall cure rate and time to cure between MSC and non-MSC groups. The secondary endpoints were 180-day overall survival and cumulative cure rate. RESULTS: Finally, 31 severe pneumonia cases (16 in MSC group, 15 in non-MSC group) and 76 non-severe cases (31 in MSC group, 45 in non-MSC group) were enrolled in this study. Among severe pneumonia cases, overall cure rate in MSC group was significant higher than that in non-MSC group (12[75.0%] vs. 5[33.3%]; OR = 6.00, 95% CI [1.26–28.5]; p = 0.020); the time (days) to cure in MSC group was dramatically reduced compared with that in non-MSC group (36 [19–52] vs. 62 [42–81]; OR = 0.32, 95% CI [0.12–0.88]; p = 0.009); the 180-day overall survival in MSC group was better than that in non-MSC group (74.5% [45.4–89.6] vs. 33.3% [12.2–56.4]; p = 0.013). Among non-severe pneumonia cases, the time (days) to cure in MSC group was notably decreased compared with that in non-MSC group (28 [24–31] vs. 33 [26–39]; OR = 0.31, 95% CI [0.18–0.56]; p = 0.003). Compared with non-MSC group, MSC-treated patients achieved significant improvements of cumulative cure rate not only in severe pneumonia cases (p = 0.027), but also in non-severe cases (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed that MSC treatment could contribute to improving outcomes in children with pneumonia post-HSCT, especially in severe cases. These findings suggest MSC treatment as a promising therapy for HSCT-related pneumonia in children. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13287-022-02960-7.