Doctors Skirt FDA To Heal Patients With Stem Cells

kkleiner writes "For many years countless individuals in the US have had to watch with envy as dogs and horses with joint and bone injuries have been cured with stem cell procedures that the FDA has refused to approve for humans. Now, in an exciting development, Regenerative Sciences Inc. in Colorado has found a way to skirt the FDA and provide these same stem cell treatments to humans. The results have been stunning, allowing many patients to walk or run who have not been able to do so for years. There's no surgery required, just a needle to extract and then re-inject the cells where they are needed. There has always been a lot of hype around stem cells, but this is the real deal. Real humans are getting real treatment that works, and we should all hope that more companies will begin offering this procedure in other states soon."

Comments

cancer worries

[drDugan]

I'm bullish on these techniques, and feel strongly that they will usher a new wave of medical breakthroughs, redefinitions of disease states, and significant increases in longevity.

However, there are real concerns about neoplastic growth from stem cells - that older cell used to create "autologous" transplants (cell lines that start from the given subject and are re-injected back into that subject) may have damage that leads to uncontrolled growth. Real safety testing is very, very difficult to do in a controlled way.

Re:cancer worries

[natehoy]

Well, we apparently have a pool of willing volunteers who are knowingly accepting medical treatment from a doctor that is not FDA approved. You know for sure this guy's malpractice insurance isn't going to cover it if his patients all end up with sudden cases of terminal cancer, and in the meantime his procedures on willing subjects are going to give the FDA tons of useful data. So, studies are being done, no worries about malpractice insurance rates going up. Sounds like a winner to me.

I just hope the risks have been explained to the patients who are receiving the treatment. I mean, REALLY explained. Not in terms of the vacuous testimonials on this site, but in terms of "we don't know how big the risk really is yet, because we don't do this a lot in humans."

I know a few people who are suffering from severely reduced mobility (permanent crutches) who get far less exercise than they would if their legs worked properly. If you told them there was a $10,000 cash treatment that gave them an 75%+ chance of significant improvement within a year year, but a chance they could eventually develop cancer, I expect at least a couple of them would go for it. One of them is in her 40s and due to weight (brought on by 15 years of waiting to qualify for surgery) is a relatively poor candidate for knee replacement. She can't exercise because she can barely get out of bed, and she can't get surgery because she can't exercise (any movement = pain), so she's in a nursing home. I think she'd gladly trade a risk of dying of cancer a couple of decades from now for the ability to get some exercise and at least enjoy those decades.

Re:cancer worries

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a musculoskeletal radiologist.

On the pair of MRI images, which are probably proton density fat saturated images, the bone at the top of the pictures is the patella, shown here near the center where there is complete cartilage coverage, some of which is included in the circle. This cartilage is slightly irregular or frayed on the left, and smooth on the right. The bone near the bottom of the image is the femur, which is shown at a level above the cartilage. The dark signal material near the femur, more of which is included in the circle than patellar cartilage, is fat. Note that the patellar cartilage is different brightness than all of the fat (subcutaneous, or suprapatellar pouch) in these images.

In my opinion, there is no change between the two images. The knee didn't look severely damaged to begin with, and the area adjacent to the femur wasn't even cartilage.

Re:Not surprising

[fusiongyro]

Results don't have anything to do with the moral argument. Proof that eating babies gives you laser vision would not lead to legalization of baby eating.

Furthermore, embryonic stem cell research was never actually banned. The federal government just wasn't willing to pay for embryonic stem cell research, which seems like a fair response to morally questionable research. At any rate, my understanding is that adult stem cells have produced more and better results anyway, and that's exactly what this doctor is doing: taking your own stem cells and giving them back to you. No fetuses = no moral problem. What's actually being skirted here is federal regulation over medical and drug procedures, not anything specific to stem cells.

I personally think people should be permitted access to experimental medical procedures, as long as they understand that as they are experimental, they're waiving their right to sue for wrongful death or medical malpractice, as well as any federal mandate for it to be covered by their insurance. If you have money and want to take the risk, by all means have at it. As for me, the state can pay for it when I'm reasonably convinced of the scientific validity—which includes that the long-term side effects do not outweigh the short-term benefits.

Re:No Surgery Required?

[fahrbot-bot]

They harvest a small amount of your own bone marrow, extract the stem cells from it, and inject them into the spots where they are needed.

With the addition of one more step in that they cultivate the stem cells after extraction to increase their numbers before re-injection. Many other clinics already do extract, spin, inject. The higher numbers of stem cells after cultivation is what they say improves their effectiveness rate.

Re:How great

[clarkkent09]

That "one daring little company" is gonna get shut down, which is a good thing. Clinical testing of their treatment method has yet to be completed, and a lot of people could get hurt if it turns out there are problems.

In general I agree, you have to do clinical tests. However, I don't see why patients should not be able to voluntarily accept this or other untested treatments provided that a full disclaimer is made. In a case where the approval of a treatment with a great deal of evidence in it's favor has long been delayed due to political or religious reasons as is the case with human stem cell therapies, working around the FDA might be a good thing.

Re:Not surprising

[natehoy]

It's not embryonic stem cell issues at work here, it's the unknown effect of taking stem cells from the marrow, concentrating them, and re-injecting them into the patient. Stem cells might grow into the material you want, or they might go all cancerous. Testing it is hard because people die if it goes badly, and without testing the FDA isn't about to put a seal of approval on it.

So, on one hand this guy's a maverick boldly testing out a new procedure and helping his patients in the short term, and doing clinical trials on real patients to determine the risk levels. On the other, he's putting each and every one of them at an unknown level of risk of dying of a virulent strain of cancer.

Only history will tell if he was a heroic maverick, bucking the system and getting good medicine done a' la hundreds of bad American cop movies (and we'll all point and laugh at the slow stupid FDA for not making a faster decision and wasting our tax dollars delaying real help to real people), or a reckless asshole who ended up killing a bunch of patients with particularly virulent strains of cancer and, by doing so without FDA approval, managed to screw up their medical coverage of that condition so they ended up dying in pain and broke (and we'll all point at the FDA for not stopping this nefarious villain like they were supposed to and wasting our tax dollars allowing real people to be killed by dangerous experiments).