Review “Stem cells in burn wound healing: A systematic review of the literature” Ali R. Ahmadi a, * , 1 , Maria Chicco b, 1 , Jinny Huang a , Le Qi a , James Burdick a , George M. Williams a , Andrew M. Cameron a , Zhaoli Sun a a Department of Surgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA b Department of Surgery, St. Mary’s Hospital, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom a b s t r a c t Introduction: Severe burns are often associated with high morbidity and unsatisfactory functional and esthetic outcomes. Over the last two decades, stem cells have generated great hopes for the treatment of numerous conditions including burns. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the role of stem cell therapy as a means to promote burn wound healing. Methods: Comprehensive searches in major databases were carried out in March 2017 for articles on stem cell therapy in burn wound healing. In total 2103 articles were identified and screened on the basis of pre-determined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results: Fifteen experimental and two clinical studies were included in the review. The majority of studiesreported significant improvement in macroscopic burn woundappearance as well as a trend toward improved microscopic appearance, after stem cell therapy. Other parameters evaluated, such as re-vascularization, collagen formation, level of pro- and anti-inflammatory mediators, apoptosis and cellular infiltrates, yielded heterogeneous results across studies. Conclusion: Stem cell therapy appears to exert a positive effect in burn wound healing. There is, therefore, justification for continued efforts to evaluate the use of stem cells as an adjunct to first-line therapies in burns. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved. a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Accepted 19 October 2018 Available online xxx Keywords: Burns Skin Stem cells Wound healing Skin regeneration Systematic review Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00 2. Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00 2.1. Literature search strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00 2.2. Inclusion and exclusion criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00 2.3. Literature screening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00 3. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00 3.1. Experimental studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00 3.2. Macroscopic assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 00 * Corresponding author at: Department of Surgery, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 720 Rutland Avenue, Ross 771, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA. E-mail address: aahmadi4@jhmi.edu (A.R. Ahmadi). 1 The authors contributed equally to this work. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2018.10.017 0305-4179/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd and ISBI. All rights reserved. b u r n s x x x ( 2 0 1 8 ) x x x – x x x JBUR 5689 No. of Pages 10 Please cite this article in press as: A.R. Ahmadi, et al., “Stem cells in burn wound healing: A systematic review of the literature”, Burns (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2018.10.017 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect jo u rn al h o mep age: w ww .elsevier .co m /loc ate/b u rn s