Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Knee injury is one of the most common sports injuries, and it seriously impacts the athletes training and competition. The injury can also cause cardiovascular and metabolic adaptation to decline and disuse muscle atrophy. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) characterized by pluripotent, low immunogenicity, no rejection of its advantages provide a broad application prospects in prevention and treatment of knee joint injury.
OBJECTIVE: To summarize the application of BMSCs to sports knee injury, and to provide a scientific basis for prevention and treatment of knee injury.
METHODS: We searched PubMed database for literatures published from January 1994 to May 2010. Key words were “bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, exercise, knee injury”. Articles on BMSCs and exercise knee injury were included, and repetitive studies were excluded. Finally, 34 articles were selected for further analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The repair effect of BMSCs on knee joint cartilage, tendon, muscle cells and meniscus was explored by analyzing physiological characteristics, clinical application of BMSCs and causes of sports knee injury. The results showed that BMSCs for its convenience, less invasive and easy separation from the bone marrow have great values for repairing knee cartilage damage, promoting tendon repair and treating knee joint injury.