good news! Another mesenchymal stem cell therapy offers hope.
Recently, Liu Hao, director of the Department of Spine Surgery of West China Hospital of Sichuan University, sent news that a middle-aged man who was paralyzed in the lower body due to traumatic spinal cord injury received mesenchymal stem cells, becoming the first batch of patients to receive "allogeneic umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells for spinal cord injury clinical research" at the Department of Spine Surgery of West China Hospital of Sichuan University. At present, the first patient to receive treatment has completed 4 injections of mesenchymal stem cell preparations, and there are no adverse reactions.
This case makes people look forward to stem cell treatment of spinal cord injury in the new year!
At present, with the continuous deepening of stem cell research, more and more scholars are committed to the research related to the treatment of spinal cord injury by mesenchymal stem cells. Today we will also systematically summarize the treatment of spinal cord injury in this article, helping you to have a better understanding of the clinical progress in this field.
01 Spinal cord injury with mesenchymal stem cell therapy
I believe that many people have heard of spinal cord injury as a disease, spinal cord injury is a disease that can make people debilitating, which usually causes patients to be disabled for life, such as lifelong paralysis.
Why is it so serious? Is it really so terrible to say?
Neuronal cells in patients with spinal cord injury will die in the first 12 hours to a few weeks, resulting in a large loss of neurons and glial cells, further nerve cell demyelinating, nerve cell cavities, glial scars, and correspondingly, patients will show loss of sensation and perception, various functional limitations, etc. In addition, because nerve cells have almost no regenerative ability, the ability of the nervous system to repair the damaged myelin sheath and rebuild the function of nerve connections is relatively limited, so it is often difficult to recover from spinal cord injury! That's why spinal cord injuries have such serious consequences!
Currently, evolving medical technologies are paving the way for biotherapy. Active cells, such as stem cells, have the ability to promote healing and tissue regeneration. Among them, the role of mesenchymal stem cells as a perfect way of cell-based tissue regeneration is worthy of recognition.
At present, there are more and more information and data on the treatment of spinal cord injury by mesenchymal stem cells, as of now, there are 492 clinical research projects registered on the http://clinicaltrials.gov website for stem cell treatment of central nervous system diseases, of which mainly clinical phaseS and II. are mainly involved, involving stem cells including mesenchymal stem cells, neural stem cells, etc.
02
Meta-analysis: Mesenchymal stem cell therapy yields results
Studies have shown that in the field of cell therapy, mesenchymal stem cells are ubiquitous and have unique self-renewal ability, plasticity, multidirectional differentiation potential, homing ability, immunomodulatory properties and anti-inflammatory effects. Coupled with its ease of availability and amplification in vitro and excellent genomic stability, it is often the first choice for stem cell therapies.
Recently, researchers published a related article in Cytotherapy[1], summarizing the results of mesenchymal stem cells in the treatment of traumatic spinal cord and their subsequent development. Through literature analysis, the researchers screened out a total of 19 relevant studies, of which the intervention population was patients with traumatic spinal cord injury, the intervention therapy used stem cell therapy, and the control therapy was routine nursing, and then the treatment effect was judged by recording and evaluating the patient's nervous system status and bladder function before and after treatment.
Image from literature[1]
Neurological status assessment: Neurological status is assessed primarily using the Injury Grade Scale (AIS scale) and the American Spinal Injury Association Sensory Scale (ASIA Sensory Scale). A total of 6 of the 19 study reports involved the AIS grade scale, which included 259 patients, and the level of neurological status of patients receiving stem cell therapy increased compared with the control group, indicating that the patient's nervous system status improved compared with before treatment, while the control group did not have a significant change in neurological status level. Eleven were assessed using the ASIA Sensory Scale, enrolling a total of 538 patients, and the results suggested a significant improvement in overall ASIA sensory ratings in stem cell therapy patients.
Bladder function: in three studies involving 84 patients, patient residual urine output was monitored and found that residual urine output in the experimental group was significantly reduced compared to the control group. In addition, two studies involving 94 patients found significant improvements in bladder function in the experimental group.
Adverse reactions: some patients were found to have adverse reactions in 12 studies, and compared with the control group, some patients experienced some side effects, such as fever, headache, etc., which could be relieved by themselves or through treatment. During the follow-up process, no major adverse reactions such as tumor or death were found in the patients.
03 Outlook: More clinical evidence may come
The systematic summary of literature on the treatment of spinal cord injury by mesenchymal stem cells affirms the efficacy of mesenchymal stem cells on spinal cord injury, but because most of the current studies are still in phase I and II clinical trials, and some patients may have some small adverse reactions, their treatment plans need to be further improved. Time will test the therapeutic effect and repair ability of mesenchymal stem cells for spinal cord injury. In 2022, it is expected that there will be more clinical research output in this field, providing more evidence for promoting the development of clinical translation.
bibliography:
[1] Muthu S, Jeyaraman M, Gulati A, Arora A. Current evidence on mesenchymal stem cell therapy for traumatic spinal cord injury: systematic review and meta-analysis. Cytotherapy. 2021 Mar;23(3):186-197.
[2] Salewski RP, Mitchell RA, Shen C, Fehlings MG. Transplantation of neural stem cells clonally derived from embryonic stem cells promotes recovery after murine spinal cord injury. Stem Cells Dev. 2015;24(1):36-50.