23 Seriously Ill MS Patients Recover After 'Breakthrough' Stem Cell Treatment (telegraph.co.uk) 74
schwit1 quotes a report from The Telegraph: Multiple sclerosis patients who were severely disabled are walking, working and even downhill skiing again following a breakthrough therapy which completely destroys, then rebuilds, the immune system. The trial, which is the first in the world to show complete long-term remission from the debilitating disease has been hailed by experts as "exciting" "unprecedented," and "close to curative." Although it is unclear what causes MS it is thought that the immune system attacks the protective coating which surrounds nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord leading to inflammation, pain, disability and in severe cases, early death. [The new technique, which is a treatment usually used to fight leukemia, involves using chemotherapy to entirely eradicate the damaged immune system, before rebooting it with a transfusion of bone marrow cells. Out of the 24 patients who were given the treatment at least seven years ago, the majority have seen significant improvements. 70 per cent of patients saw a complete stop to the progression of the disease, while 40 per cent saw a reversal in symptoms such as vision loss, muscle weakness and balance loss.] Last week, it was reported that a wheelchair-bound stroke victim was able to walk again after an "unprecedented" stem cell trial at Stanford.
Implications for other immune system disorders? (Score:2)
Wouldn't this possibly also have implications for fighting other disorders where the immune system attacks the body?
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Yep, all you have to do is risk total immune system, liver and other important organ failure. It's done with leukemia all of the time.
That's the rub. It's a pretty drastic 'cure'. They picked people who would, in all likelihood die or be greatly debilitated by their disease and tested it on them. The interesting point is that it may be a general reboot of the immune system, good for many immune system diseases (MS, Chron's, ulcerative colitis, Rheumatoid arthritis and yes, Lupus).
But it's going to be a
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But it's going to be a while before you can do this in your local community hospital.
Yep, better to die than to take the risk of dying. Current FDA body-count estimate is up to 2 Nazi Holocausts - when people believe they can achieve risk avoidance, they completely fail at risk management.
Common... (Score:3)
Yep, better to die than to take the risk of dying...
Many immune deceases Chron's, UC, etc. aren't likely going to kill you. Full experimental immune system reboot might be a bit risky for those patients :)
- when people believe they can achieve risk avoidance, they completely fail at risk management
That argument goes both ways... take the question of whether or not colonoscopy is useful for screening cancer.
Avoiding or seeking to minimize risk is not easy... Please tell me what level of risk one should accept for diagnosis and treatment of annoying but largely manageable deceases like Chron's, UC, etc. ?
1/300 for major complication and possible dis
Re:Common... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please tell me what level of risk one should accept for diagnosis and treatment of annoying but largely manageable deceases like Chron's, UC, etc?
It should be the level of risk acceptable to the informed and consenting individual patient, not the level of risk acceptable to a government bureaucrat. Many of these diseases may not be directly fatal, but they can destroy a person's quality of life to the point they feel their life is not worth living, so they may be willing to take a substantial risk for a cure. Nobody should have the right to veto that decision.
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Please tell me what level of risk one should accept for diagnosis and treatment of annoying but largely manageable deceases like Chron's, UC, etc?
It should be the level of risk acceptable to the informed and consenting individual patient, not the level of risk acceptable to a government bureaucrat. Many of these diseases may not be directly fatal, but they can destroy a person's quality of life to the point they feel their life is not worth living, so they may be willing to take a substantial risk for a cure. Nobody should have the right to veto that decision.
THIS THIS a billion times! THIS!
If something like this could cure my top 1 diabetes and I would never have to listen to another asshole trying to tell me I got type one from eating at mc donalds too much or eating too much candy as a kid... yes it would be worth risking dying!
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I'm not about to claim the FDA is reasonable or even thinking. However, those who are largely unaffected between flare ups may prefer to live with it rather than risk death.
A big problem is the FDA, composed primarily of people who do not have a chronic condition, wants to decide for patients what risk is too high rather than just making sure the patient knows what the risk actually is and how much benefit they can expect from it.
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Actually, since the patient receives his own harvested marrow, rejection is not one of the risks.
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It might, but the side effects are brutal - the treatment killed one patient and landed another five in intensive care. This is a treatment you'd have to be desperate to try. Perhaps further refinement can make it safer.
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Yes. There have been a few small trials, and occasional single patient case reports, of the use of this treatment for a variety of conditions.
I saw it used about 15 years ago, for a young person with severe Crohn's disease. They had already had all their large bowel and about half their small bowel removed, and was needing about 2 surgeries a year for complications of the disease. The treatment-related infections were unbelievable (afterall, they had no immune system, and their entire intestine was basicall
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Before the inevitable comments (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Before the inevitable comments (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been getting some coverage in the right-wing media, where it's being gleefully spun as proving that embryonic cells are useless and only dumb liberals would waste their money on research with them.
Everything is politics. The nature of the hyper-partisan nature of US political culture: There is nothing that cannot be spun into supporting one of the two major factions. Sometimes both spin it to their own ends.
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It's been getting some coverage in the right-wing media..
Everything is politics.
And yet you just brought up politics.
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Which part of everything did you fail to understand?
The part where he provided a source for the fringe, inconsequential commentary he repeated.
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Here's one: http://onenewsnow.com/science-... [onenewsnow.com]
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OneNewsNow asked why adult stem cell successes are not generally known. According to Prentice, it's partly because the emphasis has been on human embryo research.
“We kept hearing how embryonic stem cells were going to cure, as one person put it, 'all known maladies,'” he says. “Embryonic stem cells haven't helped a single person - and in decades of research they haven't helped that many laboratory mice. Usually they just grow and make tumors.
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These were bone marrow stem cells, not embryonic stem cells.
Where did the bone marrow stem cells come from?
The treatment was done 13 years ago, I didn't think they were gene editing back then so I assume they come from donors? Does that mean they require immunosuppressant drugs?
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I assume they come from donors? Does that mean they require immunosuppressant drugs?
Immunosuppressant drugs should not be needed. The patient's original immune system is wiped out. The new immune system is regenerated from stem cells, and even if they are from donors, as the new immune system matures it will learn to recognize the patient's cellular surfaces as "self". So their should be no rejection.
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Bone marrow transplant survivor. If it requires immunosuppressant drugs, then there isn't a good enough match, probably. I had a very good match, and George (my new bone marrow) and I have gotten along just fine.
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They do come from donors, and immunosuppressive drugs are not required. Transplants of tissue from living donors like bone marrow is very different from tissue from deceased donors like hearts and lungs. With transplants from deceased donors, the pool of donors is small and there's very little time to choose a recipient before the organ
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My father in law died when chemotherapy for cancer killed his bone marrow, and thus, his immune system. Maybe it would be a good idea to take samples of marrow stem cells before doing something which could kill the marrow entirely, so that the marrow could be re-booted, so to speak in the case of disaster.
Re: Before the inevitable comments (Score:2)
Let's hope it works (Score:2)
Let's hope it works, as for the usual stem cell treatments this is as helpful as the treatment itself.
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Stopping disease progression in MS does not automatically mean that a patient regains some amount of functioning that was lost to the disease. It simply means that the disease does not get worse, not that the patient is healed of the damage. Some cases of MS do not have acute phases with subsequent remission at all; and of those that do exhibit remission, sometimes it is not complete.
Therefore, one should not expect those percentages to add, since some patients would be counted in multiple categories.
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"And 70 per cent of patients saw a complete stop to the progression of the disease, while 40 per cent saw a reversal in symptoms such as vision loss, muscle weakness and balance loss."
Also, 70 + 40 = 110, WTF?
An article in the Toronto Star about this [thestar.com] indicates that, of the 24 patients, "seven saw their symptoms deteriorate even after the transplant", although "this progression levelled off after about two years, Freedman said." (24-7/24)*100 ~= 70, so 70 percent apparently had no progression of symptoms after the treatment.
As for the 40%, presumably 30% saw a stop in the progression of the disease but no reversal of symptoms, 40% saw a reversal, and 30% saw no immediate stop although it appears that the progr
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I have MS, while my condition is nowhere near as serious as the people in the study (I'll never be able to ride a bike, but I can usually walk fine without a cane on level ground, sometimes even in a straight line), if someone came to me and said that there's a ~4% chance I'd die, but a ~35% chance my mental deterioration can be reversed (per the study 35% experienced an improvement) and ~60% chance I would stop getting worse, I would hop onboard pretty damn quick.
Before I jump on this, though, I'd want to
If it cures MS (Score:5, Funny)
does it mean it stops Windows 10 from installing?
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I came here to confirm someone would have posted this.
You did not disappoint.
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I tried to resist - honestly I did!
On a more serious note, I do have some vicarious experiences of friends who have suffered this disease and I hope that this turns out to be a cure for them and their Windows 10 problems. shit, I did it again, help me!!
Multiple sclerosis (Score:2)
So it's not about computers that have had Microsoft malware forced on them.
Weird math (Score:2)
Are we to believe 16.8 of the 24 had their symptoms stop and 9.6 had reversals?
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But of course! Hence the name "Multiple" Sclerosis.
Wait, wait! (Score:1)
But Republicans and the far-right religious zealots keep telling us that stem cell research is evil and bad and wrong. They couldn't possibly be mistaken, could they??
Just wait until one of these anti-stem cell fucktards needs a stem cell-derived treatment to save his life or that of his child, then you'll see them change their fucking tune. Suddenly it'll be "god's will that led the scientists" to these breakthrough treatments.
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Nice strawman, pretty much no Republican has been against stem cell research itself. The opposition is source of embryonic stem cells, a la aborted fetuses, which as mentioned above, is not the type of stem cells used in this treatment.
Organ transplants? (Score:4, Interesting)
Organ transplant patients have to spend the rest of their lives gobbling immunosuppressive drugs. Could this technique be used to remove and reboot the immune system, including in the replacement organ, for such patients?
Probably not (Score:3)
Organ transplant patients have to spend the rest of their lives gobbling immunosuppressive drugs. Could this technique be used to remove and reboot the immune system, including in the replacement organ, for such patients?
I believe the answer to your question is "no", although I'm not a biologist.
Cells have a specific molecule, the "major histocompatibility complex" [slashdot.org], which lives in the cell wall and presents bits of broken-down proteins to the outside. The immune system checks these proteins to determine the health of the cell and to determine whether a response is needed.
Each MHC complex also has its own particular code, and the immune system of the body is trained to recognize these codes as "self" and not trigger a respon
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Thanks for that really informative post. May I trouble you with another question?
How about auto immune diseases like Reiter's Syndrome / Lupus, and how about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? I'd be willing to try almost anything to improve these conditions, but there isn't much research or many trials.
Stephen Hawking (Score:1)
what about Stephen Hawking
Not in the blurb (Score:1)
1) Embryonic stem cells are never used anymore, these trials were conducted by harvesting bone marrow from each patient and growing their own stem cells from that. 2) The Ottawa researchers stated that this treatment was useful for about 15% of patients. Other factors included age of patient and length of time they had the disease: older patients were selected out, and patients who had the disease for decades (not just 1 or 2 years) would not have benefited from this because the long term damage of the di
Use measles to reboot the immune system? (Score:1)
Another possible way to reboot the immune system is to infect the patient with measles.
One of the effects of this disease is to erase all information accumulated by the immune system and force it to relearn how to make antibodies for everything.
Hopefully, it won't learn how to attack its host's body.
I wrote a blog article about the need to treat information embodied in the patient's body: http://www.zak.co.il/tddpirate... [zak.co.il]
Dear reader ain't gettin' any younger, you know (Score:2)
> unprecedented stem cell MS cure
> unprecedented stem cell paralysis cure
Unprecedented penis growth and functionality cure?
Heh heh (Score:2)
"Why are we not funding this?" - Peter Griffin