Question for Wise

[t8burst]

Dr Young,

I recently reconnected with a friend who at age 26 had an anoxic event during an operation to have a pacemaker installed. He is (in his words) a partial quadrapalgic, can feel everything but can't control his body. Hands are contracted, drool, etc. Atypical of anoxic events aside from some short term memory problems his mental capacity is unchanged.

Is there hope for him in any way with current stem cell research? I understand how a person like myself, who if you managed to hook my spinal cord back up I would be "cured" but from my understanding of what happened to him, parts of his brain died due to lack of oxygen and I don't see how stem cells would help that.

Thanks in advance.
Tom

[Wise Young]

Originally Posted by t8burst

Dr Young,

I recently reconnected with a friend who at age 26 had an anoxic event during an operation to have a pacemaker installed. He is (in his words) a partial quadrapalgic, can feel everything but can't control his body. Hands are contracted, drool, etc. Atypical of anoxic events aside from some short term memory problems his mental capacity is unchanged.

Is there hope for him in any way with current stem cell research? I understand how a person like myself, who if you managed to hook my spinal cord back up I would be "cured" but from my understanding of what happened to him, parts of his brain died due to lack of oxygen and I don't see how stem cells would help that.

Thanks in advance.
Tom

Tom, there are several clinical trials that are going or are being planned for stem cell therapies of stroke. This is apparently what your friend has. I am particularly hopeful and interested in the work of John Lin at China Medical University. He had some good results with bone marrow CD34 cells obtained from the patient's blood but found that other patients (>50 year old) did not have enough CD34 cells. So he is now testing HLA-matched umbilical cord blood cells. The cells are injected into the brain. Animal studies show promise for return of function. So, I am awaiting the results of this trial.

Wise.