Mesenchymal Stem Cell Treatment for Stroke

Article 1 - Washington Post

Researchers at Stanford studied stem cells (mesenchymal stem cells, note here) injected directly into the brains of stroke patients. They said on Thursday that they were shocked by the results of the experiment, because some of the subjects regained their exercise ability.

The study included only 18 patients, and its primary purpose was to assess the safety of the experiment rather than its effectiveness. The results of the experiment have puzzled people in the field of neuroscience because they seem to go against our stereotyped view of brain damage - that brain damage is often irreversible.

The findings, published in the journal Stroke , may shed new light on our understanding of a range of neurological diseases, such as traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury and Alzheimer's disease, if confirmed in larger clinical trials. mutism.

The study included patients who had passed a critical recovery period - typically six months after trauma, when brain repair plateaus without significant improvement. Usually after this point the treatment is stopped as the brain circuits are deemed dead and cannot be repaired. Every subject in the study had brain damage caused by a stroke below the outermost layer of the brain and had significant impairment in moving the extremities. Some subjects even had a stroke 3 to 5 years before treatment.

The one-time treatment involves surgeons drilling a hole in the skull and implanting stem cells at different sites of injury. These stem cells are obtained from the bone marrow of an adult donor. The patient remained awake throughout the procedure and returned home that day.

Subjects experienced mild side effects such as transient headaches, nausea and vomiting. One patient experienced a collection of fluid that needed to be drained, but this was resolved appropriately. Participants were assessed for speech, vision, motor ability, and other aspects of daily functioning by brain imaging and several criteria at 1, 6, and 12 months after surgery.

Gary Steinberg, the study's lead author and chief of neurosurgery at Stanford, said in an interview that he was cautious about overstating the significance of the small study's findings. But he and his team were astounded by the dramatic improvement seen in seven of the 18 patients.

Steinberg stated that "the improvement is not just a little bit, such as someone who can't move a finger and now can shake it. The degree of improvement is much more meaningful than that. A 71-year-old wheelchair-dependent patient can walk again", and Steinberg himself Most of the surgeries in this clinical trial were performed.

Another patient, only 39 years old, suffered a stroke two years ago and currently has difficulty walking and speaking. "She didn't want to marry her boyfriend" "She was embarrassed about going down the stairs by herself," he explained. But after the treatment, Steinberg said, "she had a marked improvement in her mobility and her speech, and now she's married and pregnant."

Steinberg said the study does not support the idea that the injected stem cells turned into neurons. Instead, it suggests that these cells promote certain biochemical reactions that enhance brain repair.

" One theory is that these cells trick the adult brain into naivety and repair it well, " he explained.

Researchers at Stanford have started a larger randomized, double-blind, multicenter trial using the same protocol and are already enrolling patients. They are targeting 156 people and hope to have results within two years.

Article 2 - Biological Valley

Injecting stem cells into the brains of stroke patients can significantly improve their speech, physical strength and mobility. Some of these patients were even able to walk again.

The success of this clinical trial means we have underestimated the brain's ability to heal itself, and it may one day be possible for this therapy to restore function to the brain.

"A 71-year-old woman was only able to move her left thumb before treatment began," said lead researcher Gary Steinberg, a neurologist at Stanford University. "Now she can walk and raise her hand above her head."

This is the second clinical trial to restore brain function by injecting stem cells into the brain. A similar clinical trial in the UK was also successful last year.

The trial was sponsored by a company called "SanBio". Although the team only treated 18 patients, all of these patients showed significant improvement after treatment, and 7 of them improved significantly.

Patients participating in the trial had a stroke ranging from 6 months to 3 years . Before that, their condition had been stagnant.

Before and after treatment, the researchers measured their mobility on a scale of 1 to 100. They found that all patients experienced an average 11.4 percent improvement in mobility after undergoing the treatment. This means that the therapy can effectively improve the quality of life of patients.

So how does it work? The treatment works by injecting stem cells through a hole in the head into the part of the brain responsible for movement, which is damaged in stroke patients.

The researchers are not very clear about the specific treatment mechanism, but they can slowly find the clues as the treatment continues to deepen. It seems that this technology can restore the youth of the brain.

The infused stem cells, called mesenchymal stem cells, were collected from the bone marrow of two healthy people. These cells were engineered to continuously express the protein Notch1, which is primarily responsible for brain development in infancy. Each patient was infused with 2.5 million, 5 million and 10 million cells in the trial.

In experiments on rats, the authors found that the injected cells did not last longer than a month in the body, but during this time, the cells secreted growth factors that promoted the formation of new connections between brain cells and tissue regeneration.

"We used to think that the brain circuits of patients were dead, and now we need to reconsider this issue. Personally, I think that the brain circuits of patients are just inhibited, and our treatment can stop this inhibition. This therapy is more like It reverts the adult brain back to the state of a baby, so it can be repaired more ideally."

After MSC infusion, the arm that could not be raised due to the stroke actually raised

"You can't imagine that one day people were fine. The next day, everything changed." This is how Sonya Kuhn felt after her stroke, and it is also a true portrayal of almost all stroke patients. For stroke patients, the most difficult thing is the immeasurable "sequelae" after stroke. Fortunately, the development of regenerative medicine has made stem cell technology a new means of intervening in the sequelae of stroke, bringing new hope to these patients.

Stroke , also known as cerebral apoplexy , is an acute cerebrovascular disease. It is the main cause of death and disability worldwide. Once it occurs, patients can only ensure complete recovery of motor skills if they receive treatment within the first few hours of the acute onset. But in reality, it takes a long time from onset to treatment, and many stroke patients will be left with different sequelae. Sonia Kuhn , 31 , is one of those unfortunate people. A stroke plunged her into despair. After a small experiment at Stanford University School of Medicine in the United States, the successful application of stem cells allowed her to regain her life. It brings new hope to more stroke patients.

In the Mood for Love, but unfortunately suffered a stroke

Sonya Kuhn, who lives in Long Beach, California, never imagined she would have a stroke at such a young age. That year, she was only 31 years old. It happened suddenly, and the stroke caused severe damage to her brain, which left her partially paralyzed on the right side of her body . She couldn't move her arms freely and had difficulty walking . Even when she wanted her husband to help, she suddenly found that she could no longer call her husband by his name. Sonia felt "trapped" in her body. She couldn't accept everything that happened suddenly, but she was helpless.

Two years after her stroke, Sophia, who originally thought she would be slowly recovering, became even more discouraged because she still couldn't lift her arm. Will she always be like this? She was still so young and wanted to try more options for a possible cure. In this way, a small stem cell experiment being launched at Stanford University School of Medicine in the United States attracted Sonia's attention. Don't give up even if there is a glimmer of hope. Sonia chose to accept this challenge.

Stem cell reinfusion only takes one day, Her arms were raised!

This is a small clinical trial at Stanford University School of Medicine, which used special stem cells for experimental treatment. Stem cells were injected directly into the brains of 18 stroke patients who received treatment. The results showed that their motor abilities were significantly restored. Sonia is one of the 18 people and one of the patients known as the "miracle". After just one day of receiving the experimental treatment, Sonia made incredible improvements overnight! She can raise her arms above her head, move them to the sides and in front of her, and she is speaking more fluently. "I can talk after I wake up, and I can speak better." Sonia was amazed at her changes, which made her want to cry with excitement. After stem cell treatment, she went from being paralyzed in bed to basically returning to normal activities. Ability that shocked everyone.

In this trial, Professor Steinberg drilled a small hole in the patient's skull and used a very thin needle to inject modified human adult stem cells around the stroke area, where the stem cells went to work to repair neurological function. These cells don't survive long after surgery, but they appear to trigger the patient's damaged brain to begin repairing itself, and the cells somehow restart their repair function. Now Sonia's life is back on track. She is now married and pregnant with her first child. Although doctors can't guarantee that this will happen for all patients, at least in this small trial, most patients All benefit from this in the long run.

With the development of regenerative medicine, stem cell therapy is not limited to stroke, but also extends to the treatment of more refractory and degenerative diseases, such as ALS , Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, etc. We hope Stem cells can have an effect on more diseases, and I believe this day will come.

Sonia is lucky because as research on the application of stem cell technology in treating the sequelae of stroke becomes more and more widespread, more stroke patients are benefiting from it. At the same time, the development of stem cell regenerative medicine has also brought new treatment options to more patients, which will have a profound impact on the entire medical field. The continued development and advancement of stem cell technology means that we can better treat some currently incurable diseases, which brings new hope to patients who were once considered incurable by the medical community.