Cell-based versus corticosteroid injections for knee pain in osteoarthritis: a randomized phase 3 trial.

Various types of cellular injection have become a popular and costly treatment option for patients with knee osteoarthritis despite a paucity of literature establishing relative efficacy to each other or corticosteroid injections. Here we aimed to identify the safety and efficacy of cell injections from autologous bone marrow aspirate concentrate, autologous adipose stromal vascular fraction and allogeneic human umbilical cord tissue-derived mesenchymal stromal cells, in comparison to corticosteroid injection (CSI). The study was a phase 2/3, four-arm parallel, multicenter, single-blind, randomized, controlled clinical trial with 480 patients with a diagnosis of knee osteoarthritis (Kellgren-Lawrence II-IV).