UCTClinic: Experts about therapy by stem cells

[PanBogdan]

Processing the stem cells
Stem cells are not ready immediately – they have to be prepared for being the basic part of therapy
Stem cell therapy is a very difficult work that takes experience and knowledge.
Do you know that:

1. In order to be used for therapeutic purposes, stem cells are to be carefully instructed and prepared to behave in a specific way. For example, when the transplantation of bone marrow is done the cells are “asked” to do something that they are destined to do, namely, to make blood. That is the reason why the procedure is usually successful. Sometimes experts want cells behave in a way that is absolutely different from their ordinary work in human body. To program the behavior of cells is really difficult. Another problem is gaining integration of stem cells and other cells of the body after the stem cell therapy.
2. Stem cells are not always safe, even if they come from our bodies. The transplantation of stem cells, just as any medical intervention, is not always safe. If the cells come from the body of the patient, the immune response is unlikely to happen, but all the processing of the cells is really risky. Being out of the patient’s body the cells may change their basic characteristics, may lose the ability to function in a specific way, or may decline from the normal way of the growth control. Moreover, the cells may get infected with various pathogens that may result in a serious disease after transplantation. Removing or injecting the stem cells is risky either.
3. Stem cell therapy is still an unproven method of treatment. It has to make us think twice before agreeing to it. In most cases when people decide to try this kind of therapy, the disease of theirs is generally considered incurable, so the people feel they have not anything to lose on such trial. But it is wrong. The danger of complications, tumor development should make people consider the potential benefit versus potential risk.

Clinical trials: how they work
Stem cell therapy is always preceded by clinical trials, and we have to know how they are done
Any clinical trial is a study that is aimed at answering the questions of a treatment’s effectiveness. The stem cell therapy trials follow the basic rules of all trails.

1. They are used to give the answer to a question of whether something is effective/ineffective, or safe/unsafe.
2. Question the ineffectiveness of the methods that already exist and used.
3. The success of the trial will show that the new method is not risky and gives good results, and only after this the experiment may become the standard in medicine.

It is important to remember the following:
- Not all clinical trials are equal, and the stem cell therapy trials as well. They differ in many qualities and evidence types. Any trial is unique, and no trial may have another one as a basis.
- Any trial has 4 testing stages:

1. minor groups’ tests (to know the safe dose, the side effects of the method applied);
2. large groups’ test (to prove the effectiveness of the treatment, and to further watch side effects);
3. still lager groups’ tests in the form of therapeutic treatment (to prove/disprove the positive effect of the new method being compared to the methods that are already applied);
4. very large groups’ tests after the method has begun to be used as a standard one (to watch the effectiveness and side effects as a follow-up examination).

Sometimes after the last stage of trials some serious effects are discovered, and it becomes the reason of the tested method eliminating.
The trials of treatment with the use of cells in question are held constantly. Now we may say that most of the trials are at stage 2 or 3, and none of them have reached the stage 4 yet. The effectiveness and the side effects of the therapy is questioned greatly, and no doctor may apply it until he or she is absolutely sure of its positive results.

[JerryD]

Thanks for your comments, Pan. The subject of using Stem Cells is most interesting and needs more interest like yours. I am waiting to actually meet some 'former' MSer's who have received either HSCT or Mesenchymal stem cell therapy. Both seem to have had successful outcomes in various clinics around the world.
Now, I am waiting for the procedures to come to the rest of us. Good luck