The first patient was a 72-year-old man with tremor-dominant Parkinson’s who, after showing a hand tremor, developed stiffness in the neck, shoulder, and leg affecting his ability to walk and drive. Despite being treated with levodopa and related therapies, he continued to deteriorate and was selected for the procedure.
Two weeks after cell injections, the man reported subjective improvements that peaked around four to six months post-treatment and were sustained over five years of follow-up. They included improvements in his ability to walk, sit-to-stand and bend, talk, and his handwriting and utensil use, and facial movements. Non-motor improvements included lesser skin dryness, lesser drooling, better sexual function and libido, and lesser fatigue.
I agree with you Jim. And these look like very non-invasive procedures as compared to other stem cell treatments that require drilling holes in the skull.
A clever way to get stem cells access to the brain without brain surgery. The stem cells had to find their way to the right place on their own, but apparently some did. Larger trial certainly called for.
This forum has tought me to be incredibly wary of subjective self assessment.
I agree. However, in addition to subjective self assessment, I believe UPDRS measurements were more objectively determined and the results were sustained over many years. My biggest takeaway is frustration at how slowly potential advances reach the market. Time is not on our side.
Oh well that's good then. I only read your extract lol.
Yes stuff takes forever.
Do we know how the Japanese are going? A patient there got his cells more than 2 years ago. My gut feeling is that if there was an observable benefit there, we would have heard about it, but maybe not. What about the guy that spent 2 million funding his own research project? Any news from him (wealthy guy from California, I'm sure you've read about him)?
I'm not sure. What intrigued me about this story is that the procedure seems less invasive than the Japanese trial. The Japanese trial and self funded guy seem to be working, but info is hard to come by there, too. The hope...and the frustration continue.
I am with your sentiment Jim. Seems like some of these ideas have been talked about for a long time. FUS PTT still sounds best followed by stem cells ,combined with FUS. I Keep my fingers crossed
Wouldn't it be great if either "Mesenchymal Stem Cells" (what Jim is referring to) or "Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells" (what Chris is referring to) would change their name, so that there is less risk of mixing these two very different things together in the same thread?
Actually, Jim, you could help by including the word "mesenchymal" in the title of the thread.
Happy for the 2 patients, wonder how they got selected for trial. Wonder if they performed it on someone more high profile like Michael j fox would it gain more traction or does the patient have to fit a certain profile with age or type of symptoms. If they can push through covid trials they should be able to push these through. Line would be out the door with volunteers waiting to sign any liability waivers.
You would think with 1,000,000 PWP in the US and another million PWP in Europe, Australia, and NZ, that would be a big enough market for them to make enough $$, so it's a baffling question.
I wonder if it has to do with the US being a laggard in producing top-quality scientists from our 26 place educational system?
I think that mesenchymal stem cells have great potential, despite their (past) misuse by numerous clinics in the US and elsewhere.
I did a quick search through Simon's SoPD blog posts for one on mesenchymal stem cells, and could not find one. I've emailed him to ask whether he thinks that this new research paper merits such a post.
"The Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) score, which assesses both motor and non-motor symptoms, moved from 20 before the injection to 4 five years later (lower scores represent lesser disability). A significant reduction in the patient’s levodopa equivalent daily dose — the combined total of levodopa-related therapies — was also recorded."
Now needs to be replicated by 1000 a few times by others in other locations and imprimaturs, with controls and reversals, then longitudinally, along with some blinds who got no such treatment, along with statistical controls, and reversals over time.
However, with the advent and rapid spread of CRSPR technology, I could envision the entire stem cell field being overtaken or subsumed by gene splicing and implantation in a few years, maybe a very few.
I had stem cell therapy, and had no noticeable effects. I met a gentleman with PD in my area that had it, and had great improvements. They didn't last 5 years, however. It was from IV's.
There are so many scam artists out there. As of now, there are no legitimate publicly available stem cell treatments of any kind. However, there are currently human trials of pluripotent stem cell treatment in Japan and Australia and hopefully soon in the USA.
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