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Wheelchair-Bound Stroke Victim Walks Again After 'Unprecedented' Stem Cell Trial At Stanford (washingtonpost.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: Stanford researchers studying the effect of stem cells injected directly into the brains of stroke patients said Thursday that they were "stunned" by the extent to which the experimental treatment restored motor function in some of the patients. The results, published in the journal Stroke, could have implications for our understanding of an array of disorders including traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury and Alzheimer's if confirmed in larger-scale testing. The work involved patients who had passed the critical six-month mark when recoveries generally plateau and there are rarely further improvements. Each participant in the study had suffered a stroke beneath the brain's outermost layer and had significant impairments in moving their arms and-or legs. The one-time therapy involved surgeons drilling a hole into the study participants' skulls and injecting stem cells in several locations around the area damaged by the stroke. These stem cells were harvested from the bone marrow of adult donors. They suffered minimal adverse effects such as temporary headaches, nausea and vomiting. "Their recovery was not just a minimal recovery like someone who couldn't move a thumb now being able to wiggle it. It was much more meaningful. One 71-year-old wheelchair-bound patient was walking again," said Steinberg, the study's lead author and chair of neurosurgery at Stanford who personally performed most of the surgeries. Steinberg said that the study does not support the idea that the injected stem cells become neurons, as has been previously thought. Instead, it suggests that they seem to trigger some kind of biochemical process that enhances the brain's ability to repair itself. "Patients improved by several standard measures, and their improvement was not only statistically significant, but clinically meaningful," Steinberg said. "Their ability to move around has recovered visibly. That's unprecedented. At six months out from a stroke, you don't expect to see any further recovery."
Embryonic stem cells (and any kind of pluripotent stem cells) are hard to work with and haven't produced many results. Adult stem cells are much cheaper to work with and have produced a lot of good results. This isn't a PR issue, it's a technical issue.
Embryonic stem cells (or pluripotent stem cells -- meaning they can become any type of cell) are hard to get.
Adult stem cell transfers have been around for a while (~50 years)...and most of it was based on the older Bone Marrow Transfers.
Note: Adult stem cell transfers (non Autologous (Self)) still have to deal with Host vs. Graft disease.... it's great when it works...but it's also a die roll and can flat out kill you.
Since I am alive and cancer-free today thanks to a bone marrow transplant, George (my new bone marrow) and I thank you and commend you for doing so.
Oh, and I encourage everyone else to do so as well. It's not difficult, painful, or time-consuming, and it just might save a life....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I've been on a marrow donor list since '94, when a volunteer practically accosted me while I was walking to the school cafeteria and begged me to sign up since they were desperately short of Asian donors. They took a cheek swab and two blood samples; that was it.
A decade later, I got a call saying I was a preliminary match, and they needed my permission to unthaw one of the blood samples so they could run a more thorough compatibility test on it. I would receive a letter I'd need to sign consenting to further testing of my blood, plus some additional questions, which I filled out, signed, and returned. Sadly, the second test revealed my marrow wasn't a good enough match to warrant the risk of a transplant. But it did give me some insight into the process.
Donors and recipients are kept anonymous. You won't get to meet each other. There is no compensation, but as the donor you won't have to foot any of the medical bills. If you think about it, this is more like insurance than it is a donation. Because who knows, it could be you who needs the bone marrow transplant in the future. The procedure is low-risk, but they did say the area would be really sore for a week or two, like you'd run a marathon (they take the marrow from your hip). Which I thought was a funny analogy to use since I and I suspect most people have never run a marathon.
Anyway, it's a small price to pay for potentially saving someone's life. Go do it if you haven't yet.
https://bethematch.org/support-the-cause/