Cellular Therapy for the Treatment of Osteonecrosis: From Bench to Bedside.

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) comprise a mixture of various stem cells in myeloid tissue with multipotential differentiation capacity. They can differentiate into bone cells under specific conditions and can be used to treat osteonecrosis of the femoral head through cell transplantation. This chapter summarizes research on MSCs in the field of osteonecrosis of the femoral head performed by our team, reveals the progress realized in the last 30 years, describes their potential to treat osteonecrosis disease, and analyzes existing challenges in the future for using MSCs in clinical applications.