Nasal stem cell question..

[JWJR1970]

Hi thanks for your answer Wise! I had another question...I just got finished watching a discussion called Cutting Through The Spin on Stem Cell Research and Cloning and there was a story about an 18 yr old San Antonio, Texas girl who flew to Portugal and recieved adult stem cells from her nose and they bridged her injury site with the stem cells and then showed her in therapy later moving her foot and legs..With these adult stem cells already helping people like that why isn't that going on now in America? Adult stem cells don't come with all the controversy over creating life to just destroy it etc. Thank you!

Jack

[Wise Young]

Originally Posted by JWJR1970

Hi thanks for your answer Wise! I had another question...I just got finished watching a discussion called Cutting Through The Spin on Stem Cell Research and Cloning and there was a story about an 18 yr old San Antonio, Texas girl who flew to Portugal and recieved adult stem cells from her nose and they bridged her injury site with the stem cells and then showed her in therapy later moving her foot and legs..With these adult stem cells already helping people like that why isn't that going on now in America? Adult stem cells don't come with all the controversy over creating life to just destroy it etc. Thank you!

Jack

Jack, that girl is a member of CareCure. If I remember the movement of her legs, it was quite minimal. The one paper that was published reported mostly sensory improvement and modest motor responses.

Recently, I heard a talk by Carlos Lima, the pathologist who has been leading the effort in Lisbon to transplant nasal mucosa cells into the spinal cord. I understand that the Lisbon hospital that he was working at is no longer allowing that operation to be carried out. On the other hand, I understand that the procedure is being done in a hospital in Greece.

But, more interesting was the fact that Carlos Lima is working with some of the patients who were part of the earliest group, that had been operated on several years ago. He showed videos of several of these patients walking. Now, granted that these patients may have been incomplete patients but Carlos suggested that they are "complete".

Lima asked during his talk (in Brescia, Italy) whether any of the doctors in the audience had seen a pateint who was a chronic complete injury walk? Of course, nobody had. So, he was quite legitimately asking the question, why one has to have surgical controls when such recovery had never been seen before?

I am not saying that the nasal mucosa transplant is working but I thought that the question he was asking is very interesting and important.

Wise.

[6 Shooter]

Dr Young, is it true that one of the reasons that the spinal cord does not regenerate itself after injury is because of inadequate blood supply from the small and limited number of blood vessels?

[Wise Young]

Originally Posted by 6 Shooter

Dr Young, is it true that one of the reasons that the spinal cord does not regenerate itself after injury is because of inadequate blood supply from the small and limited number of blood vessels?

6 Shooter,

I don't think that lack or shortage of blood vessels is a problem in chronic spinal cord injury. In animals, my experience suggests that the spinal cord injury site actually has an abundance of blood vessels, more than normal, at the injury site. Of course, there very little pathology evidence from humans because we have relatively few autopsies of people with chronic spinal cord injury where blood vessels have been studied. Very little is known about the blood flow at the injury site of chronic spinal cord injury. The following may be relevant:
• Despite many years of hyperbaric oxygenation (HBO) studies in animals and humans, there is no convincing evidence that HBO improves function. If there were ischemia at the injury site, one would expect HBO to be beneficial in more cases of chronic spinal cord injury.
• Surgeons have exposed the spinal cord after injury. The spinal cord may appear pale during the first few weeks after injury, when edema may restrict blood flow to the injury site but this is not true of chronic injury. In several cases where I have observed exposed chronically injured spinal cord, I don't think that the injury site was pale.
• There have been few blood flow studies of the spinal cord injury site in humans. Due to the lack of neuronal activity in the injury site, it is possible that there will not be as much blood flow to the area as other parts of the spinal cord (Source).

Wise.

[Wise Young]

Originally Posted by Wise Young

Jack, that girl is a member of CareCure. If I remember the movement of her legs, it was quite minimal. The one paper that was published reported mostly sensory improvement and modest motor responses.

Recently, I heard a talk by Carlos Lima, the pathologist who has been leading the effort in Lisbon to transplant nasal mucosa cells into the spinal cord. I understand that the Lisbon hospital that he was working at is no longer allowing that operation to be carried out. On the other hand, I understand that the procedure is being done in a hospital in Greece.

But, more interesting was the fact that Carlos Lima is working with some of the patients who were part of the earliest group, that had been operated on several years ago. He showed videos of several of these patients walking. Now, granted that these patients may have been incomplete patients but Carlos suggested that they are "complete".

Lima asked during his talk (in Brescia, Italy) whether any of the doctors in the audience had seen a pateint who was a chronic complete injury walk? Of course, nobody had. So, he was quite legitimately asking the question, why one has to have surgical controls when such recovery had never been seen before?

I am not saying that the nasal mucosa transplant is working but I thought that the question he was asking is very interesting and important.

Wise.

I just heard from Dr. Lima. He tells me that the procedures are still going on in Lisbon and that they have not stopped doing the surgery there. They are more selective with the patients because they want patients who are willing to go through their rehabilitation program. He also says that there are places in Colombia, Greece and Japan who are doing similar studies and that they are supporting the programs there. Finally, their protocols do not include incomplete spinal cord injury patients.

I am sorry if I had misled anybody.

Wise.

[anmit]

Originally Posted by Wise Young

I just heard from Dr. Lima. He tells me that the procedures are still going on in Lisbon and that they have not stopped doing the surgery there. They are more selective with the patients because they want patients who are willing to go through their rehabilitation program. He also says that there are places in Colombia, Greece and Japan who are doing similar studies and that they are supporting the programs there. Finally, their protocols do not include incomplete spinal cord injury patients.

I am sorry if I had misled anybody.

Wise.

Dr. Young,
Why would they not include patients with incomplete injuries?
Thank you,
Anna