Discrepancy between short-term and long-term effects of bone marrow-derived cell therapy in acute myocardial infarction: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Bone marrow-derived cell therapy has been used to treat acute myocardial infarction. However, the therapeutic efficacy of this approach remains controversial. Here, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate short-term and long-term effectiveness of bone marrow-derived therapy. Methods We searched eight databases (Ovid-Medline, Ovid-EMBASE, Cochrane Library, KoreaMed, KMBASE, KISS, RISS, and KisTi) up to December 2014. Demographic characteristics, clinical outcomes, and adverse events were analyzed. We identified 5534 potentially relevant studies; 405 were subjected to a full-text review. Forty-three studies with 2635 patients were included in this review. Results No safety issues related to cell injection were reported during follow-up. At 6 months, cell-injected patients showed modest improvements in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) compared with the control group. However, there were no differences between groups at other time points. In the cardiac MRI analysis, there were no significant differences in infarct size reduction between groups. Interestingly, mortality tended to be reduced at the 3-year follow-up, and at the 5-year follow-up, cell injection significantly decreased all-cause mortality. Conclusions This meta-analysis demonstrated discrepancies between short-term LV functional improvement and long-term all-cause mortality. Future clinical trials should include long-term follow-up outcomes to validate the therapeutic efficacy of cell therapy.