Which cell type is actually studied for which condition
Clinics offer the same cell product for everything. Trial registries do not agree. We counted MSC, HSCT and exosome studies across 26 conditions and put them in one table.
Every cell-therapy provider has a preferred product, and it tends to be offered for whatever the patient walks in with. The research effort is distributed very differently, and the distribution is public — it just is not published anywhere as a single comparison.
Counts from clinicaltrials.gov API v2, retrieved 2026-08-29. Each bar is one condition, split by the cell type used in the registered studies.
| Condition | MSC | HSCT | Exosomes | Total | MSC recruiting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knee osteoarthritis | 124 | 10 | 4 | 138 | 9 |
| Cirrhosis | 62 | 21 | 4 | 87 | 5 |
| Multiple sclerosis | 37 | 38 | 2 | 77 | 3 |
| Crohn disease / IBD | 52 | 18 | 2 | 72 | 6 |
| Stroke recovery | 45 | 14 | 11 | 70 | 7 |
| Spinal cord injury | 38 | 11 | 1 | 50 | 2 |
| Heart failure | 32 | 13 | 1 | 46 | 3 |
| Diabetes | 29 | 14 | 1 | 44 | 1 |
| Lupus | 23 | 17 | 2 | 42 | 4 |
| ALS | 29 | 11 | 1 | 41 | 2 |
| Rheumatoid arthritis | 22 | 11 | 4 | 37 | 2 |
| Alzheimer disease | 23 | 1 | 10 | 34 | 6 |
| Erectile dysfunction | 23 | 0 | 5 | 28 | 5 |
| Parkinson disease | 19 | 3 | 5 | 27 | 1 |
| Ageing | 16 | 3 | 5 | 24 | 1 |
| Cerebral palsy | 13 | 8 | 1 | 22 | 1 |
| Autism | 10 | 3 | 5 | 18 | 4 |
| Hair loss | 7 | 0 | 10 | 17 | 4 |
| COPD | 10 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 4 |
| Psoriasis | 10 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 0 |
| Muscular dystrophy | 9 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 0 |
| Long COVID | 9 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 1 |
| Atopic dermatitis | 5 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 0 |
| Male infertility | 4 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 1 |
| Macular degeneration | 4 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 2 |
| Spinal muscular atrophy | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| All 26 conditions | 657 | 202 | 84 | 943 | 74 |
Knee osteoarthritis absorbs the field
124 MSC studies for the knee alone — more than the next two conditions combined. Yet only 9 are recruiting. The gap between how much has been studied and how much you can currently join is wider here than anywhere else on the list.
Multiple sclerosis is the one place HSCT competes
Across all 26 conditions, MSC studies outnumber HSCT by 657 to 202. Multiple sclerosis is the single exception: 38 HSCT studies against 37 MSC. That is not a rounding artefact — haematopoietic transplantation in MS has a genuine research history, and it is the reason MS gets discussed differently from the rest of this list.
Where exosomes lead, cells are not the point
Exosomes are a minority overall — 84 studies against 657 for MSC — but they cluster. Hair loss carries 10 exosome studies against 7 MSC. Alzheimer disease has 10 exosomes and almost no HSCT. Stroke recovery has 11.
The pattern is consistent: exosomes appear where the goal is signalling delivery rather than engraftment. That is a mechanistic difference, and it is visible in what researchers chose to register.
The empty column matters too
These conditions have zero registered HSCT studies: Erectile dysfunction, Hair loss, Psoriasis, Long COVID, Atopic dermatitis, Spinal muscular atrophy. A provider offering a haematopoietic protocol for any of them is proposing something with no registered research behind it in this dataset.
What this table is and is not
It counts registered studies. It does not weigh them, and a registry entry is not a result — a single well-run randomised trial outweighs thirty small uncontrolled series that count identically here.
Use it for the question it actually answers: is anyone systematically researching this cell type for this condition, and can I join a study rather than pay for an unproven one.
Sources & further reading
- Stem-cell trials registry (ClinicalTrials.gov) ↗
- Peer-reviewed research (PubMed) ↗
- ISSCR — patient resources ↗
- FDA — consumer guidance ↗
- EMA — ATMP framework ↗
Commercial price observations are heterogeneous and most cell-therapy uses remain investigational. Verify source scope, regulatory status and the proposed care with an independent qualified physician.