New Hope for Reversing the Effects of Spinal Cord Injury: Phase I/II results

[ay2012]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0312151947.htm
...For bone marrow stem cell injection+physical therapy. Anyone have any further, more specific information?

[manouli]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0312151947.htm
...For bone marrow stem cell injection+physical therapy. Anyone have any further, more specific information?

This is a great news! Thanks for posting it.

[wesmaister]

so awesome!!!!!!

[Buck503]

Sounds bogus to me. For starters, it's the typical quackery approach to
treating spinal cord injury - bone marrow cells injected intrathecally.
SOURCE

Before any a-holes accuse me of just being a bitter pessimist, here's
a good explanation straight from Dr. Young.

I am quite critical, for example, of therapies that are just injecting cells (no matter what kind) intravenously and intrathecally. I don't think that cells will get into the spinal cord and this may explain why the treatment results have been mixed and modest.

SOURCE

Finally, there is no evidence that intrathecal administration of the cells will result in cells that enter into the spinal cord, survive, and behave like stem cells (i.e. produce other kinds of cells, such as neurons or astrocytes).

SOURCE

Several other groups have done the same thing over the years; TCA, Xcell,
etc. If you see the words "bone marrow" and "intrathecal/intravenous", it's
a good bet that it's garbage.

[Barrington314mx]

bitter pessimist

eh, I like using "realist".

[ay2012]

Sounds bogus to me. For starters, it's the typical quackery approach to
treating spinal cord injury - bone marrow cells injected intrathecally.
SOURCE

Before any a-holes accuse me of just being a bitter pessimist, here's
a good explanation straight from Dr. Young.

SOURCE

SOURCE

Several other groups have done the same thing over the years; TCA, Xcell,
etc. If you see the words "bone marrow" and "intrathecal/intravenous", it's
a good bet that it's garbage.

Fair enough. But what you're saying about this dude is essentially what jerry silver says about wise. I am skeptical about the same types of procedures and hesitant for ANYTHING that hasn't shown results in severe contusion models at chronic stages. But this standard hasn't been met for the UCBMC+Lithium therapy either.
So if I were to say, today, should we invest in bringing such therapies to trial I'd be weary to say yes. But if they have already been tested in humans and some beneficial effects are showing...I don't give a damn about the mechanism, sprouting vs. true regeneration, etc. all that matters is that it works.

[ian]

.I don't give a damn about the mechanism, sprouting vs. true regeneration, etc. all that matters is that it works.

Absolutley, I agree. Bone marrow has been done so many times and does not work despite misleading media announcements. You will find that the improvements have come from the intensive physical therapy involved.

[ay2012]

Absolutley, I agree. Bone marrow has been done so many times and does not work despite misleading media announcements. You will find that the improvements have come from the intensive physical therapy involved.

I haven't read the paper but in the abstract they say improvements were significantly better than in the control group which received PT alone.
Listen, I'm not vouching for the paper, I just posted it as it came up in my news feed. And I would be similarly skeptical if this was an animal study... But a study in humans that purports to show improvements in previously neurologically stable SCI patients is intriguing to me. If you guys think the data is made up or the authors are lying or whatever, fine but just go out and say so.

[Snowman]

Couple of things that bug me so far about this paper and the press release:

1) "...as reported in Cell Transplantation by scientists at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School..." All of the surgery and treatment was done in Egypt and all but one of the authors is in Egypt. Not slamming Egypt, just bugs me that they insinuate that this was a US trial done in the US.

2) They do not describe what the "physiotherapy" consisted of, just "Standard physiotherapy".

[ian]

Smoke and mirrors. What irritates me is that depsite the overwhelming evidence over the years that bone marrow stem cells are of no benefit there is still an enormous amount of money and time diverted to this research that could be used elsewhere. Much of it in my belief is perpetuated by the pro life crowd who want to push forward thier idealogoy at all costs and promote anything other than ESCR. I have even had stand up arguements with members of the public whom are throughly convinced that bone marrow and adult stem cells are already effecting complete cures for a variety of illnesses and will believe nothing else. Our biggest fight for the cure is against the propoganda put out by these people imo.

[Buck503]

Couple of things that bug me so far about this paper and the press release:

1) "...as reported in Cell Transplantation by scientists at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School..." All of the surgery and treatment was done in Egypt and all but one of the authors is in Egypt. Not slamming Egypt, just bugs me that they insinuate that this was a US trial done in the US.

2) They do not describe what the "physiotherapy" consisted of, just "Standard physiotherapy".

When I looked it up on clinicaltrials.gov, the supposed completion
date was 12/08 - 4 years ago. If the results were so robust, why
haven't they marketed the treatment yet?

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00816803

[ian]

Scamming for research funding probably.

[GRAMMY]

UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
MINUTES OF THE FACULTY MEETING December 6, 2011

Hatem Sabaawy, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and his research team have a publication in Stem Cells and Development titled, "Developmental Regulation of TAC1 in Peptidergic-Induced Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells: Implication for Spinal Cord Injury in Zebra Fish". The study found that adult human mesenchymal stem cells may have an important role in the treatment and repair of spinal cord injuries. Their results showed that mesenchymal stem cell therapy not only augments recovery after spinal cord injury, but also accelerates the recovery time.

http://rwjms.umdnj.edu/about_rwjms/f...ng12062011.pdf

http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00816803 Was the cart before the horse? I can't find the mammalian studies.

(H.E.S. is a founder and stockholder of Celvive, Inc.)
http://www.foundationventure.com/121610.html

[Skipow]

Here's a link to a thread from two years ago on this site related to this study.

/forum/showthread.php?t=144134

I would be curious what Dr. Young and Dr. Silvers take on this study are.

[KyleP2112]

Unfortunately the "evidence" behind this "therapy" for SCI looks like quackery. We need a real f#^$@&# cure!