Scleroderma, Systemic clinical trials

Infusion of Allogeneic Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Patients With Diffuse Cutaneous Systemic Sclerosis With Refractory Pulmonary Involvement

Progressive SSc is an entity with limited therapeutic alternatives and with asurvival rate of less than 45% in the first 3 to 5 years. The disease causessevere limitation in quality of life ranging from functional limitation to depression. Up to 20% of patients will be refractory to conventional treatment with diseasemodifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) and cyclophosphamide therapy.This favors the progression to visceral involvement including gastrointestinal,lung and pulmonary hypertension. The latter being a poor prognostic factor,increases mortality in this group of patients and drastically affects their qualityof life. For this reason, different therapeutic options have been considered including cell transplantation and Stem Cell use. Among the options that have been studied so far are stromal mesenchymal cells from Wharton ́s jelly. These have been used in intravenous infusion or direct application in different disease scenarios ranging from vascular involvement to interstitial lung involvement and cases of pulmonary hypertension, with promising results in terms of clinical progression,improvement in quality of life and prognostic indices. This therapy has proven to have a significant margin of safety at the time of administration and a low rate of adverse events, a self-limiting fever as the most frequent event. Based on the above and considering the possibility of offering patients without therapeutic alternatives to their disease in addition to palliative options, an intravenous infusion of stromal mesenchymal stem cells from Wharton ́s jellyis proposed for three patients with progressive SSc refractory to conventional therapy with pulmonary involvement due to pulmonary hypertension. Under this premise the question posed in our work is; What are the effects of the infusion of allogeneic mesenchymal stromal cells from Wharton ́s jellyin patients with systemic sclerosis refractory to conventional treatment with Methotrexate or Cyclophosphamide in a population of three patients with severe pulmonary involvement due to pulmonary hypertension.