Table 1 Characteristics of reviewed 39 publications with 66 comparisons (number = 66)

Cancer type

Breast cancer [2, 9, 12, 17, 18, 21, 32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40]

Osteosarcoma [11, 19, 41,42,43]

Hepatocellular carcinoma [5, 13, 44]

Colon cancer [45,46,47]

Melanoma [20, 48, 49]

Other [10, 50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58]

Animal species/strain

Nude mice [2, 5, 9,10,11,12,13, 18, 19, 21, 32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40, 43,44,45,46,47, 50,51,52,53,54, 56,57,58]

Other mice [17, 20, 48, 49, 55]

Rat [41, 42]

Animal gender

Female [2, 12, 17, 18, 20, 33,34,35,36,37, 39, 40, 43, 46, 47, 50, 51, 53, 55, 56]

Male [5, 10, 11, 19, 42, 45, 49, 54]

Unclear [9, 13, 21, 32, 38, 41, 44, 48, 52, 57, 58]

Source of MSCs

Human bone marrow [2, 9,10,11,12,13, 18, 21, 32, 34, 35, 43,44,45,46,47, 52, 54, 56]

Other human tissue [5, 33, 36,37,38, 50, 53, 57]

Mice bone marrow [20, 35, 39, 40, 48, 49, 55, 58]

Rat mone marrow [41, 42, 51]

Unclear [17, 19]

Cancer cell/MSCs dose ratio

< 1 [2, 20, 33, 39, 46, 47, 49, 54, 55]

=1 [5, 9, 12, 13, 17, 19, 21, 32, 36, 40,41,42, 44, 45, 48, 50, 51, 53, 57, 58]

> 1 [10, 11, 18, 34, 35, 37, 38, 43, 52, 56]

Timing of MSCs administration

Co-administration [2, 5, 9, 10, 17,18,19, 21, 32,33,34, 36, 38,39,40,41,42,43, 45,46,47,48, 50, 52,53,54,55, 58]

Followed administration [11,12,13, 20, 35,36,37, 41, 44, 49, 51, 56]

MSCs passages

Reported (3–20) [2, 12, 13, 19, 20, 32, 35, 37, 42, 44, 49,50,51,52]

Unclear [5, 9,10,11, 17, 18, 21, 33, 34, 36, 38,39,40,41, 43, 45,46,47,48, 53,54,55,56,57,58]

MSCs differentiation

With [18, 20, 21, 32, 33, 35, 39, 43, 45, 46, 48, 50, 52, 53, 56, 57]

Without [2, 5, 9,10,11,12,13, 17, 19, 34, 36,37,38, 40,41,42, 44, 47, 49, 51, 54, 55, 58]

Metastasis site

Lung [2, 5, 9, 11,12,13, 17,18,19,20,21, 32, 33, 35,36,37,38,39,40, 42,43,44,45, 49, 51, 54, 56, 58]

Liver [18, 33, 35, 46, 47, 52, 57]

Other organ or multiple organ [9, 10, 17, 18, 32, 34, 48, 53, 55]