Brazilians to Widen Stem-Cell Study in Strokes

Brazilian doctors who infused a stroke victim’s brain with stem cells contained in bone marrow said on Friday they would try the treatment in others after seeing signs it may have helped the patient recover.

Dr. Hans Fernando Dohmann, coordinator of research at the Pro-Cardiac Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, told Reuters a full test program on 15 patients would now go ahead to see if stem cells really can help stroke victims. Dohmann said that while the patient’s recovery could have occurred naturally, it was quite possible that stem cells did help. Bone marrow is a rich source of adult stem cells, which are blood cells that retain the capacity to grow into a range of cells including white blood cells and heart cells. “What excites us most is that there is biological activity (in the area affected by the stroke) … that the injection of cells led to no electric disturbances in the brain, and there was no inflammatory reaction,” Dohmann said. The research is performed jointly with the Rio de Janeiro Federal University. “We have seen no reports of such experiments elsewhere, so we presume we are the first,” Dohmann added. The patient, a 54-year-old woman, suffered a stroke in August that affected the dominant part of her brain. She lost movement in the right side of her body and could not understand other people or communicate with them. Bone-marrow cells from her body were slowly infused in the middle cerebral artery through a catheter on the fifth day after her stroke. After 17 days she was discharged, having recovered movements, comprehension and some speech, with further improvements reported in the following months. In September, Dohmann’s team said tests showed that bone- marrow cells can reinvigorate dying hearts of patients and grow tiny new arteries and heart-muscle tissue, a treatment that may one day make many heart transplants unnecessary. Four heart patients out of the five studied no longer needed transplants after being treated with stem cells. Adult stem cells such as those in bone marrow are already used to treat several diseases. They are different from embryonic stem cells, which scientists believe have an even greater potential in medicine. However, the use of embryonic stem cells has met opposition on moral grounds because producing them requires the destruction of human embryos. (Source: Reuters Health: Andrei Khalip: November 2004.)