*patients need remember ... it COULD be worse*
Report: Fetal stem cells trigger tumors in ill boy
By LAURAN NEERGAARD – Feb 17, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — A family desperate to save a child from a lethal
brain disease sought highly experimental injections of fetal stem
cells — injections that triggered tumors in the boy's brain and
spinal cord, Israeli scientists reported Tuesday.
Scientists are furiously trying to harness different types of stem
cells — the building blocks for other cells in the body — to regrow
damaged tissues and thus treat devastating diseases. But for all the
promise, researchers have long warned that they must learn to control
newly injected stem cells so they don't grow where they shouldn't,
and small studies in people are only just beginning.
Tuesday's report in the journal PLoS Medicine is the first documented
case of a human brain tumor — albeit a benign, slow-growing one —
after fetal stem cell therapy, and hammers home the need for careful
research. The journal is published by the Public Library of Science.
"Patients, please beware," said Dr. John Gearhart, a stem cell
scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who wasn't involved in
the Israeli boy's care but who sees similarly desperate U.S. patients
head abroad to clinics that offer unproven stem cell injections.
"Cells are not drugs. They can misbehave in so many different ways,
it just is going to take a good deal of time" to prove how best to
pursue the potential therapy, Gearhart said.
The unidentified Israeli boy has a rare, fatal genetic disease with a
tongue-twisting name — ataxia telangiectasia, or A-T. Degeneration of
a certain brain region gradually robs these children of movement.
Plus, a faulty immune system leads to frequent infections and
cancers. Most die in their teens or early 20s.
Israeli doctors pieced together the child's history: When he was 9,
the family traveled to Russia, to a Moscow clinic that provided
injections of neural stem cells from fetuses — immature cells
destined to grow into a main type of brain cells. The cells were
injected into his brain and spinal cord twice more, at ages 10 and 12.
Back home in Israel at age 13, the boy's A-T was severe enough to
require that he use a wheelchair when he also began complaining of
headaches. Tests at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv uncovered a
growth pushing on his brain stem and a second on his spinal cord.
Surgeons removed the spinal cord mass when the boy was 14, in 2006
and they say his general condition has remained stable since then.
But was the boy prone to tumors anyway or were the fetal stem cells
to blame? A Tel Aviv University team extensively tested the tumor
tissue and concluded it was the fetal cells. Among other evidence,
some of the cells were female and had two normal copies of the gene
that causes A-T — although that boy's underlying poor immune function
could have allowed the growths to take hold.
Using stem cells from multiple fetuses that also were mixed with
growth-spurring compounds "may have created a high-risk situation
where abnormal growth of more than one cell occurred," wrote lead
researcher Dr. Ninette Amariglio of Sheba Medical. She urged better
research to "maximize the potential benefits of regenerative medicine
while minimizing the risks."
This brain disease wasn't conducive to stem cell therapy in the first
place, said stem cell specialist Dr. Marius Wernig of Stanford
University, who said it's unclear exactly what was implanted.
"Stem cell transplantations have a humongous potential," Wernig said.
But "if people rush out there without really knowing what they're
doing ... that really backfires and can bring this whole field to a
halt."
http://www.google.
A0GW_4JgD96DLTT00
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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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