This therapy seems very similar to my stem cell treatment. My stem cells were "pushed" out of my bone marrow into the bloodstream, and then harvested. After my high dose chemotherapy in January 2006, they were given back to me to rebuild my immune system.
Stem
cells transplanted into early-phase multiple sclerosis patients
stabilised, and in some cases reversed, the debilitating neurological
disorder, according to a study published Friday.
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In clinical trials, a team of scientists led by Richard Burt of Northwestern University
in Chicago essentially rebuilt the immune system of 21 adults — 11
women and 10 men — who had failed to respond to standard drug
treatments.
First they removed defective white blood cells that, rather than protecting the body, attacks the fatty sheath, called myelin, that protects the nervous system.
The immune systems were then replenished with so-called haemopoeitic stem cells — extracted from the patient's bone marrow — capable of giving rise to any form of mature blood cell.
The technique is not new. But this was the first time it had been
applied to young and relatively health individuals in the early,
so-called "relapsing-remitting" phase of the disease. Participants had
had MS for roughly five years.
After an average follow-up
period of three years, 17 of the 21 patients improved by at least one
point on a standard disability scale, and none had a final score lower
than before the stem cell transplant.
The procedure "not only
seems to prevent neurological progression, but also appears to reverse
neurological disability," concluded the study, published in the British
medical journal The Lancet.
Cognitive functions and quality of
life were improved, and the treatment had a low level of toxicity
compared to other drug therapies.
Pretty cool. Stem cell therapies have been around for a couple of decades, and their use is growing. None of the successful therapies involve embryonic stem cells, where the stem cells of embryos are harvested, which of course kills the embryo. Ethically, it's like removing the heart of a healthy person to transplant into someone else. And that' not cool.
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