Prospect of Stem Cells as Promising Therapy for Brachial Plexus Injury: A Systematic Review

Relatively higher-quality human studies compared with other topics in this database, e.g. multiple RCTs or systematic reviews. This does not mean it is standard or approved care.

• Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
• Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
• Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
• Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
• Emerging · Emerging topic under active research

Abstract (original English)

Background Brachial plexus injury is an advanced and devastating neurological injury, for which both nerve surgery and tendon transfers sometimes remain insufficient in restoring normal movement. Stem cell therapy may be applicable to rescue the injured motor neurons from degeneration which potentially improves muscle strength. Study design Systematic Review; Level of evidence V. Data sources A systematic literature search was conducted on PubMed (MEDLINE), EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, and Scopus using the terms ("stem cell") AND ("brachial plexus") as search keywords. Methods The process of study selection was summarized by PRISMA flow diagram. The study included in vivo and in vitro studies with English language, humans or animals with some brachial plexus injuries, interventions, some applications of stem cells to the groups of study, with functional, biomechanical, or safety outcomes. Results In total, there were 199 studies identified from the literature sources where 75 articles were qualified for forward evaluation following selecting the titles and abstracts. Ten studies were finally included in this systematic review after full-text assessment. Stem cells can produce neurotrophic factors in vitro and in vivo in rats, and their level was increased after injury. Electrophysiological measurement showed that the intervention group had distinctly higher CMAP amplitude and

Evidence level

Relatively higher-quality human studies compared with other topics in this database, e.g. multiple RCTs or systematic reviews. This does not mean it is standard or approved care.

Browse all related research

Filter the research library by this study's title keywords, author, or publication year.