Secretome as an Alternative Therapy for Pain Intervention in Musculoskeletal Disorders

Abstract

Pain is one of the factors that may impair a person’s quality of life, and persistent pain is difficult to manage. Recently, pain management that focuses solely on symptom relief has been shown to potentially lead to chronic pain. Nowadays, clinicians face several potential approaches that may help prevent or break the cycle of pain. One of these potential approaches is stem cell therapy. Although the evidence base supporting this approach is still limited, preliminary studies—such as in vitro, in vivo, and translational studies—show positive and encouraging effects on tissue regeneration in cases of degenerative tissue damage.
The secretome is one modality of stem cell therapy that offers several advantages, including a lower risk of allergic reactions and the ability to stimulate the tissue-healing process. Secretome-based, cell-free therapy has moved from a peripheral topic in regenerative medicine to a mainstream translational strategy for musculoskeletal disorders, including osteoarthritis, ligament and tendon injury, sarcopenia, and peripheral nerve entrapment syndromes such as carpal tunnel syndrome. This reflects a broader shift toward a present-and-future translational framing of stem cell secretome across tissue repair applications (Da Silva et al., 2025). This shift deserves attention because the field is at an inflection point: preclinical data are accumulating faster than standardized clinical protocols, and manuscripts submitted for review vary widely in how they define, characterize, and dose “secretome.” These notes are intended to guide editorial assessment of submissions in this area and to outline where future-oriented, design-driven research is most needed.