Parkinson's Transplants Provide Optimism
Posted on: Sunday, 6 April 2008, 15:45 CDT
New studies in the journal Nature Medicine show that brain cell
transplants may be somewhat beneficial, but the results may not be
long-term. The studies may have increased optimism, but they seem to
have also raised questions.
Around fifteen years ago, a woman with Parkinson's disease was given
a new hope. The disease, marked by the death of dopamine-producing
brain cells, affects over a million patients in the U.S. alone.
Symptoms such as tremors, rigidity, slow movement, or instability
might decrease with medication, but no cure has been found. A decade
and a half ago, doctors transplanted brain cells, some from aborted
fetuses, into this affected woman's brain. They replaced her already
destroyed brain cells with ones that they hoped would help her get
better.
The woman's symptoms disappeared at first, but then she deteriorated
until she recently passed away. When she died, her brain showed
damage similar to that which Parkinson's causes.
Although researchers agree that benefits to these transplants clearly
exist, they disagree in regards to whether Parkinson's disease is an
ongoing process which continues to constantly attack the brain once
it begins, or if the damage may be a result of the transplants
themselves.
According to Jeffrey Kordower of Chicago's Rush University Medical
Center, Parkinson's is most likely caused by an ongoing process that
lasts for years. He said in an interview, "Whatever the offending
agent is, it is still present in the Parkinson's brain." This
particular case shows that Parkinson's-
the cells transplanted into a host with Parkinson's. Kordower said
only about 5 percent of the cells were damaged. He does not seem at
all discouraged; he quipped, "If you ask me whether this spells doom
and gloom for cell replacement, the answer is absolutely not."
Kordower is now looking for another treatment for Parkinson's in gene
therapy.
In another related study, Patrik Brundin of Wallenberg Neuroscience
Center in Lund, Sweden and his colleagues found similar damage, but
the patients he researched reported relief from their symptoms and
survived up to 16 years after the transplants.
Dr. Ole Isacson of McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School in
Massachusetts, who worked on one of the studies, found no damage in
the brains of five patients who died 9 to 14 years post-transplant.
He does believe that transplanting brain cells which are purified may
provide better results. After studying brain tissue from Kordower's
study patient, he relayed that entire chunks of brain tissue,
including cells that could have provoked inflammation, had been
transplanted into the woman. According to Isacson, "…the transplant
is basically triggering an immune reaction."
Isacson has a positive outlook on the new findings and wishes to
attempt using stem cells trained to grow into Parkinson's affected
brain cells in order to treat patients.
http://www.redorbit
vide_optimism/
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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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