“Latest Stem Cells News”

Dozens of people who were blinded or otherwise suffered severe eye damage when they were splashed with caustic chemicals had their sight restored with transplants of their own stem cells — a stunning success for the burgeoning cell-therapy field, Italian researchers reported Wednesday.

The treatment worked completely in 82 of 107 eyes and partially in 14 others, with benefits lasting up to a decade so far. One man whose eyes were severely damaged more than 60 years ago now has near-normal vision.

“This is a roaring success,” said ophthalmologist Dr. Ivan Schwab of the University of California, Davis, who had no role in the study — the longest and largest of its kind.

Stem cell transplants offer hope to the thousands of people worldwide every year who suffer chemical burns on their corneas from heavy-duty cleansers or other substances at work or at home.

The approach would not help people with damage to the optic nerve or macular degeneration, which involves the retina. Nor would it work in people who are completely blind in both eyes, because doctors need at least some healthy tissue that they can transplant.

(…) Bioheart’s MyoCell® is a regenerative cell therapy that uses myoblasts, or muscle stem cells, that are grown from a patient’s own muscle. MyoCell® has been tested successfully on patients in four clinical trials. The REGEN trial is designed to test the safety and effectiveness of a composition of muscle stem cells that have been gene-modified to induce a greater than usual release of the SDF-1 protein. The SDF-1 protein is a molecule in the human body that, after an injury, is naturally released by most tissues to attract stem cells. The stem cells assist with the healing process.

Unlike other tissues, the heart muscle does not release enough SDF-1 to attract the number of stem cells that would result in complete self-healing. As a result, scar tissue forms and impairs normal heart function.

Results from Bioheart’s preclinical animal studies have shown that the genetically modified MyoCell® is far more effective than MyoCell® alone in accomplishing repair and tissue regeneration. With SDF-1, there is a release of additional therapeutic proteins to assist in the tissue repair process, resulting in a more expansive and quicker repair. Once that repair or regeneration has occurred, the patient’s improved heart function permits the patient to return to a normal life style.

MIAMI, Fla. (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Some are calling it the next big frontier in cardiac treatment — injecting stem cells to regenerate the heart. But the experimental procedure means major surgery. Doctors are opening the door for heart patients who want to test the benefits of stem cells — without an operation.

One heart attack behind him, Max Eaton is now struggling with heart failure. He’s hoping stem cells are the answer to heal his ailing heart. “I happened to run into this article, which was the second or third time I heard about this stem cell research, and decided nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Eaton told Ivanhoe.

Instead of surgery, where the chest is opened and stem cells are injected into the heart, Alan W. Helman, M.D., an interventional cardiologist at the University of Miami, delivers the cells through a catheter that’s threaded through the groin. The spiral-shaped needle at the tip is screwed into the heart.

“We can now inject the cells exactly where we want to in the inside part of the heart, and we can do it in multiple different locations,” Joshua Hare, M.D., a cardiologist at the University of Miami, told Ivanhoe.
Doctors say it’s a more efficient way of delivering stem cells (…) Now, Eaton is hoping his wager on stem cells will pay off.

Doctors say Eaton is responding well to his stem cell treatment. All of the stem cells being used in this trial are adult stem cells. Studies have shown injecting heart attack patients with adult stem cells can increase the pumping power of the heart. However, it is not an approved treatment for re-growing heart tissue.

Full-length interview with Dr. Hare

from http://ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=22514

On Sept. 14, 46-year-old Hatem Faraj suffered a major heart attack while watching Monday Night Football on TV.
Tuesday, the Wesley Chapel man joined the cutting edge of heart disease research, becoming the area’s first participant in a study to see if a patient’s own stem cells can regenerate his damaged heart muscle.

The procedure he had at Pepin Heart at University Community Hospital in Tampa is part of a University of Florida research program. Its aim is improving chances of long-term survival and reducing heart transplants. Using stem cells to regenerate heart tissue has been studied for several years in animals and humans, producing mixed results. Still, the therapy is considered promising for millions of Americans with heart failure (…)

The most appealing part of the study is that a patient’s own stem cells are used, he said. “It won’t hurt you to participate,” Matar said. “I would encourage physicians to refer their patients.”

Researchers are looking at many questions surrounding the therapy: how many stem cells to infuse into the heart, how long it will take to see results, how soon after a cardiac event should treatment be delivered, how much tissue regeneration can patients expect. The long-term effects of such therapy are unknown.

The University of Florida is one of five U.S. medical centers involved in three federally funded stem cell regeneration clinical trials. Bay area hospitals with cardiac care programs were asked help enroll the almost 300 patients needed for the 2 1/2-year-long study.

“It will be a challenge,” says Dr. Charles Lambert, medical director at Pepin, the first satellite center in Florida to recruit a study participant. Lambert says that’s because patients who have just survived a heart attack must undergo two medical procedures: one to harvest bone marrow in order to get the stem cells, and another to infuse cells in the heart.

Two-thirds of participants will be infused with stem cells; the others will receive a cell-free solution. Patients — including Faraj — won’t know if they actually receive stem cells, standard protocol in medical research (…)

Because it was the first procedure at a satellite center, a UF medical team traveled to Tampa to assist with the bone marrow harvest earlier Tuesday and drive the cells back to Gainesville. There, scientists isolated the heart and vascular stem cells, extracted and purified them and handed them off to a second medical team. They drove the little bag of cells, about six tablespoons worth, back to Tampa.

Faraj was only mildly sedated during the hourlong infusion, in which the stem cells (or a cell-free solution) were sent to his heart through a catheter inserted in the groin and threaded through the femoral artery to his heart. He was smiling and talking with hospital staff immediately afterward (…)

from http://www.tampabay.com/news/health/study-hopes-to-use-patients-own-stem-cells-to-mend-broken-hearts/1041081

Look what we have here- another stem cell research trial for heart disease (congestive heart failure) and another heart patient has his life improved. This time, at the University of Louisville, the first heart failure patient treated with his own Adult Stem Cells has improved already, just 2 week after his stem cell treatment.

Adult Stem Cells Result in 30% Improvement

Michael Jones, a contractor in Louisville, was the first congestive heart failure patient to take part in this stem cell research trial. Here is more from the stem cell article:

His severe congestive heart failure was treated with the stem cell treatment. The procedure involved injecting his own cardiac stem cells into his damaged heart muscle. It was done on July 17. He shows already had 20-30% improvement of his heart function since the treatment.

Congestive Heart Failure Kills Millions Every Year- US Does Nothing

Heart failure is a leading cause of death in the United States, affecting some 6 million Americans a year. Half of the patients die within one year. Doctors have had little to offer patients with late-stage heart failure. With major muscle damage to the heart, patients have the option of a heart transplant or implantation of a mechanically assisted heart device.

What About The Millions Who Can’t Get Stem Cell Treatment?

This is good news right? Well yes and no. Yes, I am happy for Michael Jones as he is a lucky man to receive stem cell treatment using his own adult stem cells and unsurprisingly it has worked.

No, because what about the other millions of Americans who aren’t able to receive this stem cell treatment. The Fight Aging Website has a post on this:

It is only in the last couple of years that clinical trials have started for autologous stem cell therapies in the US. Or, to put it another way, for some time now unelected and largely unaccountable employees of the US government have forbidden US residents – on pain of criminal prosecution – from offering or making their own decisions about a medical technology commercially available elsewhere in the world. All the while, these bureaucrats impose vast costs on medical development concerns by insisting on largely pointless trials, continuing far past any reasonable trade-off between risk and reward, thereby greatly postponing the commerical introduction of these technologies in the US.

Do you have responsibility for, or even the ability to make your own medical choices? Not according to people in positions of power at the FDA. Regulation in medicine has largely become an exercise undertaken for its own sake, as is the end result of any centralization of power. No-one’s interests are being served save for those of the career bureaucrats in charge of forbidding new things. Everyone else gets to suffer due to the ball and chain shackled to medical progress, and due to being forbidden the basic, fundamental freedom to choose how to treat their own medical conditions.

Now ask yourself, why can’t anyone with heart disease and the necessary funds just up and do the research on the treatment and choose to try this within the borders of the US? Because a faceless bureaucrat has decided that it is forbidden, and that anyone who offers this treatment must be jailed. Welcome to the land of the free.

This is similar to what I argued here in this stem cell research post

Stem Cell Treatment Information

For treatment information, please fill out this stem cell treatment form- and one of the Repair Stem Cell Institute’s staff will provide you with more information – free.

For full information, write me at donmargolis@gmail.com and just put “Treatment”  in the subject box. Or, if you want to start the process to treat a loved one now, fill out this stem cell treatment form and one of the Repair Stem Cell Institute’s staff will provide you with all the help you need -free.

Recent stem cell research studies using Adult Stem Cells to treat heart diseases such as congestive heart failure and heart attacks have made the news recently.  And on the surface, these adult stem cell success stories of heart attack victims making amazing recoveries in these research clinical trials is wonderful news indeed.

New Research Trials for Heart Attack Victims

For example, at the Texas Heart Institute, John Hartman who had suffered a heart attack recently had his own stem cells implanted into his heart muscle in a new stem cell research trial.

From the stem cell article:

Dr. Jim Willerson President, Texas Heart Institute, said, “We think the improvement we see is largely from the blood flow increase salvaging the cells that are reversibly injured, allowing them to function normally.”

“That reflects in the patient being able to do better, walk further, breathe better,” said Dr. Emerson Perin St Luke’s, THI Cardiologist.

Stem Cell Trial for Congestive Heart Failure

Also, in another stem cell research trial at Vanderbilt, an unnamed 65 year old congestive heart failure patient was treated using his own Adult Stem Cells again.   Dr. David Zhao, director of the cath lab there said “The patients who stand to benefit from this approach include those whose coronary arteries are so diseased that nothing else could be done,”

What About Heart Disease Patients Who Can’t Get Adult Stem Cells?

However, the headlines don’t mention the millions who are suffering and dying after having heart attacks (1.25 million per year in the United States) and are in congestive heart failure and don’t have the opportunity to receive adult stem cell treatment because the FDA has classified a patient’s own stem cells as a drug- thus slowing down progress and starving heart patients of a “drug” with no side effects or ethical issues and only has upside.

For every Barry Brown or Kenneth Milles, heart attack victims who were lucky enough to get into a US stem cell research clinical trial using their own stem cells, there are millions of heart disease patients who do not have that opportunity. And for that, we have the FDA to blame.

And that is only addressing adult stem cell therapy for heart disease………what about the hundreds of other conditions that can be helped or improved by Adult Stem Cells?

Sad.

For more information on clinical research trials in the United States, go to the Clinical Trials website – www.clinicaltrials.gov