In recent years, we have witnessed a significant increase in the amount of studies using Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) for cancer therapy, mostly as vectors for drug or gene delivery strategies. This is because of their intrinsic capacity of homing into tumor niches. However, the interactions between MSCs themselves and tumor cells is not fully understood, with contradictory results frequently being observed regarding their effects on cancer cell invasion and proliferation. This poses an important question of safety in respect to the application of these cells. The source of the MSC population used, as well as the type of cancer cells under study might strongly influence this interaction. Moreover, differences in isolation protocols, culture media compositions, time of culture and conditioned media collection, or even timing and mode of MSCs administration to in vivo models of cancer may also affect the interaction MSC-tumor cells. In this review, we drive our focus into malignant brain tumors, particularly gliomas, one of the deadliest forms of cancer. Moreover, we look with some detail into different studies using MSCs as a treatment for brain tumors and compare them, highlighting the main deviations and similarities among them.

近年来，我们已经见证了使用间充质干细胞（MSC）进行癌症治疗的研究数量显着增加，其中大部分作为药物或基因递送策略的载体。这是因为它们具有归巢为肿瘤小生境的内在能力。然而，MSC自身与肿瘤细胞之间的相互作用尚不完全清楚，关于其对癌细胞侵袭和增殖的影响经常观察到矛盾的结果。这提出了关于这些电池的应用的安全性的重要问题。使用的MSC群体的来源以及正在研究的癌细胞类型可能会强烈影响这种相互作用。此外，隔离方案，培养基成分，培养时间和条件培养基收集的差异，癌症的体内模型也可能影响MSC-肿瘤细胞之间的相互作用。在这篇综述中，我们将注意力集中于恶性脑肿瘤，尤其是神经胶质瘤，这是最致命的癌症之一。此外，我们更详细地研究了使用MSCs治疗脑肿瘤的不同研究，并进行了比较，突出了它们之间的主要差异和相似之处。