Stem cells help stroke victims, will revolutionize medicine

There is little doubt that stem cells, along with genetics and computer science will revolutionize medicine. There are more than a dozen journals devoted to stem cell research and many general and speciality medical journals also publish research on stem cells, which means that a couple of hundred articles are published every month. At first, the research was stymied by the controversy about the fetal sources of stem cells. For the most part this problem has been circumvented by the discovery of other sources, such as umbilical cord, placenta, fat tissue, and other.

In neurology, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, and strokes have been the main targets of stem cell research. The latest study of stem cells for stroke victims conducted at Stanford by Gary Steinberg and his colleagues produced very encouraging results. This trial included only 18 patients, but they all had their stroke anywhere between 6 months and 3 years before the study – past the usual time where further recovery is expected. Improvement occurred in the majority of patients and the improvement was not affected by the age of the patient or the severity of the stroke. Although stem cells were injected directly into the brain through a small hole that was drilled in the skull, there were no serious complications or side effects. The researchers also noted that stem cells did not replace damaged cells but rather stimulated patients’ own repair mechanisms. This is at odds with the original idea that stem cells by their nature could turn into nerve cells or any other cells in the body to replaced damaged cells.

This stimulating (and anti-inflammatory) effect of stem cells was our reason for conducting a small pilot study of stem cells in patients with refractory chronic migraines, which was described in a previous post. We did not inject cells into the brain, but into the muscles around the head and neck. Three out of 9 patients showed some improvement. We used patients’ own cells extracted from their fat tissue, while the stroke study used cells derived from the bone marrow of a donor. The future of stem cell research clearly lies in the use of such off-the-shelf cells, which have been shown to be safe and are probably more effective than fat-derived cells.

Stem cell lines are being developed to treat different medical conditions – Asterias for spinal cord injury, Pluristem for radiation damage, and many other.

The same team of researchers and SanBio, Inc. the Japanese company that developed these stem cells are conducting another larger controlled trial. You can email stemcellstudy@stanford.edu for information about participating in this trial.