One's Own Stem Cells May Treat Lupus

CHICAGO - For all of her 20s, when Edjuana Ross should have been relishing the thrill of early adulthood, she was instead in and out of hospitals, battling a disease that attacked her skin, brain and heart.

Now, at 33, she has her life back, thanks to a stem-cell transplant from her own bone marrow, a drastic, experimental treatment that could be promising for patients with severe lupus.

Results like this suggests that the conditions this approach works for aren't genetic in origin. If they were, I think a patient's own stem cells wouldn't help, or would only help for a short time necessitating frequent repeat treatments, since they'd have the same genetic defect that caused the condition in the first place. The results of autologous stem cell transplants may end up providing some important clues as to whether particular conditions are of primarily genetic or environmental origin.

MY wife had double autologous(ones own cells) transplants last year. In her case it was for multiple Myeloma(bone cancer not skin). At one point a few years ago they thought she might have Lupus due to some joint problems. Multiple Myeloma shares some of the same signs as Lupus. The transplant is a tough but not impossible treatment. The most important thing is was having good family support to get through the recovery.

Since the treatment her Lupus like symptoms have gone away.

Results like this suggests that the conditions this approach works for aren't genetic in origin. If they were, I think a patient's own stem cells wouldn't help, or would only help for a short time necessitating frequent repeat treatments, since they'd have the same genetic defect that caused the condition in the first place.

Not necessarily. In the Lupus case cited in the article, the girl didn't start having problems until the end of high school, so we might be able to assume that the various cells/organs involved have a shelf life before the defect kicks in. Either way, this article stated that good results were lasting up to five years, so they weren't claiming this to be a one-time permanent solution.

Depends on the condition, I suppose. But lupus is an autoimmune disorder, meaning that the body's immune system has gone haywire and started attacking its own cells. Autoimmune disorders are much more common in women than men (for lupus, 8 times more common), and this is thought to be related to the special immune response needs of the female reproductive role, in which the body has to learn not to attack the fetus, even though it is clearly a foreign organism which may have different blood type and other differences that would normally trigger a full-blown attack from the immune system. At least in women, these diseases usually appear in early adulthood, and multiple sclerosis in particular tends to appear soon after a first pregnancy. the basic mechanism in lupus is that the immune system has begun producing a defective antibody. A treatment which permanently stops the production of that antibody could have long term effectiveness, but I don't know how that could happen using the patients own stem cells, if the origin is genetic. In some types of leukemia treatment, the patient's own bone marrow is completely destroyed by radiation, and then replaced with normally functioning marrow from a donor, so that normal white blood cells can be produced. A treatment which simply repairs the tissues damaged by lupus (or another immune disorder) wouldn't do anything about the underlying problem, and the immune system would work at destroying the new tissue. Complicated stuff, indeed.

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