Exp Ther Med 20:[Related article:] 2055–2062, 2020; DOI:
10.3892/etm.2020.8948
Subsequently to the publication of the above paper,
an interested reader expressed concerns as to the nature of the
paper (what category of article the paper should have been assigned
to), whether important information may have been missing from the
article, and whether or not the work should have formed the basis a
clinical trial.
In response, the authors have explained that this
article was not conceived as a clinical study, but as a case series
report, resulting from non-standardized administration of
treatments to individual patients on a case-by-case basis (under
the EU rules governing compassionate care and hospital exemption),
not under homogenous inclusion/exclusion criteria applicable to a
clinical study. Moreover, the ensuing patient data were analysed
retrospectively, and the intent of the article was to provide
insights into this type of treatment, for which further
developments and improvements are still needed.
In consequence, the following changes are proposed
for this article (the changed text is highlighted in
bold):
i) as shown above, the title of the article has been
changed to ‘CD271+ stem cell treatment of patients with
chronic stroke: A retrospective case series report’, to
reflect that this study should be regarded as a case series
report;
ii) it should have been explicitly stated in the
text that the patient data were analysed retrospectively, and that
the intent of the article was to provide some preliminary insights
into this type of treatment, which is still in need of further
developments and improvements;
and iii) on p. 2061, the left-hand column, the first
sentence in the final paragraph of the Discussion would have read
better as follows: ‘Based on above data and the cited literature
on mesenchymal stem cells - of which CD271+ represent a
subpopulation - it can be said that treating chronic stroke
patients with CD271+ stem cells administered
intrathecally and/or intravenously is a safe therapeutic option
with good results especially for spasticity and aphasia; at the
same time it needs to be further studied and improved...’.
These oversights did not have an impact on the
conclusions reported in this study, and all the authors agree to
the publication of this Corrigendum.
