(Treatment can be dangerous - 1 patient died)
Bone marrow treatments restore nerves, expert says
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
BETHESDA, Maryland (Reuters) - An experiment that went wrong may
provide a new way to treat multiple sclerosis, a Canadian researcher
said on Tuesday.
Patients who got bone marrow stem-cell transplants -- similar to
those given to leukemia patients -- have enjoyed a mysterious
remission of their disease.
And Dr. Mark Freedman of the University of Ottawa is not sure why.
"Not a single patient, and it's almost seven years, has ever had a
relapse," Freedman said.
Multiple sclerosis or MS affects an estimated 1 million people
globally. There is no cure.
It can cause mild illness in some people while causing permanent
disability in others. Symptoms may include numbness or weakness in
one or more limbs, partial or complete loss of vision, and an
unsteady gait.
Freedman, who specializes in treating MS, wanted to study how the
disease unfolds. He set up an experiment in which doctors destroyed
the bone marrow and thus the immune systems of MS patients.
Then stem cells known as hematopoeitic stem cells, blood-forming
cells taken from the bone marrow, were transplanted back into the
patients.
"We weren't looking for improvement,
seminar at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
"The actual study was to reboot the immune system."
Once MS is diagnosed, Freedman said, "you've already missed the boat.
We figured we would reboot the immune system and watch the disease
evolve. It failed.
STEM CELL REPAIR
They had thought that destroying the bone marrow would improve
symptoms within a year. After all, MS is believed to be an autoimmune
disease, in which immune system cells mistakenly attack the fatty
myelin sheath that protects nerve strands.
Patients lose the ability to move as the thin strands that connect
one nerve cell to another wither.
Instead, improvements began two years after treatment.
Freedman reported to the seminar about 17 of the patients he has
given the transplants to.
"We have yet to get the disease to restart," he said. Patients are
not developing some of the characteristic brain lesions seen in
MS. "But we are seeing this repair."
MS patients often have hard-to-predict changes in their symptoms and
disease course, so Freedman says his team must study the patients
longer before they can say precisely what is going on.
"We are trying to find out what is happening and what could possibly
be the source of repair," Freedman said.
But he has found some hints that may help doctors who treat MS by
using drugs to suppress the immune system.
"Those with a lot of inflammation going on were the most likely to
benefit (from the treatment)," he said.
"We need some degree of inflammation.
process that destroys myelin, it could be that the body needs some
inflammation to make repairs, Freedman said.
Immune cells secrete compounds known as cytokines. While these are
linked with inflammation, they may also direct cells, perhaps even
the stem cells, to regenerate.
The treatment itself is dangerous -- one patient died when the
chemicals used to destroy his bone marrow also badly damaged his
liver.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Eric Walsh)
(c) Reuters 2008. All rights reserved. Republication or
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similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written
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registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of
companies around the world.
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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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