Stem cell injection trial 'raises hope of MS cure'
Last updated at 10:18am on 28th September 2007
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Patients will be injected with their own bone marrow stem cells
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More polls » A pioneering new treatment which could help thousands
of multiple sclerosis suffers "recover" from the incurable disease is
being trialled for the first time at a British hospital.
The patients will be injected with bone marrow stem cells, which
researchers hope will repair damaged areas of the brain and spinal
cord and "reverse" their physical decline.
The trial - which is being carried out at Frenchay Hospital, near
Bristol - is believed to be the first time this type of authorised
therapy has been tested on patients anywhere in the world.
Around 85,000 people in the UK suffer from MS, which is a
degenerative disease of the central nervous system and can leave
patients wheel-bound and paralysed.
Previous studies have found some cells migrate to damaged areas in
the brain and spinal cord and were able to 'home in' on the damage
areas.
Neil Scolding, professor of clinical neurosciences for North Bristol
NHS Trust, who is leading the trial, said he hoped the treatment
would offer a major breakthrough in treating the illness.
"We believe that bone marrow cells have the capability to repair
precisely the type of damage that we see in the brain and spinal cord
in MS.
"So by giving patients very large numbers of their own bone marrow
cells we hope that this will help stabilise the disease and bring
about some repair.
"That is the aim: to repair and recover and to try and reverse the
disease. It might not work first time round. We might need to refine
the technique, but at last we have started using it on patients,
which is very exciting."
The six patients - aged in their 30s to 50s - all suffer disabilities
as a result of their MS.
During the trial, they will have bone marrow cells removed under
general anaesthetic. The cells are then processed and delivered back
to the patient later the same day via a vein in the arm.
The group will be closely monitored over the next year and will
undergo regular brain scans to see what impact the treatment has on
their disabilities.
"When patients get disabilities from MS they tend to build up very
slowly, in years, rather than weeks," Professor Scolding said.
"Similarly the repair, we believe, will be fairly slow. We think it
will be at least six months before we see any benefit.
"If it is a safe and we get an inkling it's working, we would aim to
do a larger study to examine the effectiveness of such treatment."
Stem cell therapies have been offered commercially in Holland to MS
sufferers, where the cells are controversially taken from umbilical
cords. But because the cells have not come from patients' own body -
there is a high risk they will be rejected.
This would not be the case in the British-based therapy, which would
only use stem cells taken from the patient's bone marrow.
It would also not involve the destruction of any embryonic cells,
which so much of the ethical debate on the treatment is focused on.
A spokesman for the MS Society, which funded some of the earlier
research into the Bristol trials, said: "While stem cell research
holds exciting possibilities it is still in very early stages.
"There is some way to go before the potential of these cells are
fully understood and used to treat MS."
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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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