Posted on 09/29/2007 8:35:25 PM PDT by Coleus
A new treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS) is being pioneered near Bristol. Six patients at Frenchay Hospital are being injected with their own stem cells in the hope that they will repair damage to the brain.
Approximately 60,000 people in the UK suffer from MS, an incurable disease of the nervous system. Prof Neil Scolding, of the Institute of Clinical Neurosciences, said: "We know stem cells are attracted into the brain, into these areas of damage."
He added that he hoped the stem cells would "help those areas to stop getting worse" and "repair damage".
'Lot of hope'
Liz Allison, an MS patient taking part in the trial, said: "I'm hoping there will be some improvement." BBC health correspondent Matthew Hill said: "We've already seen stem cells used on cardiac patients but this is the first time a reputable organisation has tried it out on MS patients.
"There is a lot of hope riding on these trials but it is very early days yet." He added that it was likely to be several months before any conclusions could be drawn regarding the treatment.
The media will continue to squawk about how embryonic stem cells may years from now treat MS, but adult stem cells are already moving forward into human trials in the UK. (As I previously reported, adult stem cells have stopped MS from worsening in a Canadian human trial.) From the Telegraph story:
Neil Scolding, professor of clinical neurosciences for North Bristol NHS Trust, who is leading the trial, said: "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."
The trial, which started six months ago, is one of the first to use patients' own bone marrow stem cells to treat their MS. It involves six people with MS, aged between 30 and 60, having a pint of bone marrow extracted from their pelvises. The processed material, containing stem cells, is then injected on the same day into the patients' arms.
Over a period of months, the patients will be monitored closely and given regular brain scans to see what impact the treatment has had on them.
This is very exciting. If it works--admittedly a big if--a lot of people are going to receive a lot of benefit. posted by Wesley J. Smith
Note: ADULT STEM CELLS, not embryonic stem cells.
Thank you for continuing to bring us the great and hopeful news about ADULT stem cells!
My wife has already had the debate about embrionic stem cures a number of times!
i just wanted to alert you to decide whether or not you wanted to ping your autism ping list and have no idea what your wife said about escr.
However, my wife has debated people who have said to her that embryonic stem cells could “cure” her. She points out that not only is there no evidence whatsoever on that front, that doing so is a gross ethical violation. She points out the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. Though there might have been medical knowledge to be gained from such, it was unethical regardless. That’s how she feels about using embryonic stem cells as a cure for her MS.
Or more briefly, killing babies to make her live longer.
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