The devastating global impact of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has prompted scientists to develop novel strategies to fight Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19), including the examination of pre-existing treatments for other viral infections in COVID-19 patients. This review provides a reasoned discussion of the possible use of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells (MSC) or their products as a treatment in SARS-CoV-2-infected patients. The main benefits and concerns of using this cellular therapy, guided by preclinical and clinical data obtained from similar pathologies will be reviewed. MSC represent a highly immunomodulatory cell population and their use may be safe according to clinical studies developed in other pathologies. Notably, four clinical trials and four case reports that have already been performed in COVID-19 patients obtained promising results. The clinical application of MSC in COVID-19 is very preliminary and further investigational studies are required to determine the efficacy of the MSC therapy. Nevertheless, these preliminary studies were important to understand the therapeutic potential of MSC in COVID-19. Based on these encouraging results, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the compassionate use of MSC, but only in patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and a poor prognosis. In fact, patients with severe SARS-CoV-2 can present infection and tissue damage in different organs, such as lung, heart, liver, kidney, gut and brain, affecting their function. MSC may have pleiotropic activities in COVID-19, with the capacity to fight inflammation and repair lesions in several organs.

严重急性呼吸系统综合症冠状病毒 2 (SARS-CoV-2) 的毁灭性全球影响促使科学家制定新的策略来对抗 2019 年冠状病毒病 (COVID-19)，包括检查其他病毒感染的现有治疗方法在 COVID-19 患者中。这篇综述对使用间充质干细胞 (MSC) 或其产品治疗 SARS-CoV-2 感染患者的可能性进行了合理的讨论。在从类似病理学获得的临床前和临床数据的指导下，将回顾使用这种细胞疗法的主要好处和问题。MSC 代表高度免疫调节的细胞群，根据在其他病理学中开发的临床研究，它们的使用可能是安全的。尤其，已经在 COVID-19 患者中进行的四项临床试验和四项病例报告取得了可喜的结果。MSC 在 COVID-19 中的临床应用是非常初步的，需要进一步的调查研究来确定 MSC 治疗的疗效。尽管如此，这些初步研究对于了解 MSC 在 COVID-19 中的治疗潜力很重要。基于这些令人鼓舞的结果，美国食品和药物管理局 (FDA) 批准了 MSC 的同情使用，但仅限于患有急性呼吸窘迫综合征 (ARDS) 和预后不良的患者。事实上，严重的 SARS-CoV-2 患者会出现肺、心脏、肝脏、肾脏、肠道和大脑等不同器官的感染和组织损伤，影响其功能。MSC 可能在 COVID-19 中具有多效性活动，