More fascinating developments in autism research are brought forward with publication of a peer reviewed open access article in the Journal of Translational Medicine 2007, 5:30. The authors propose the use of stem cells to treat autism. Translation Medicine refers to a field of medicine which attempts to convert research into actual treatment for patients, a joining of research and clinical practice of medicine. The proposal is premised on a consistent association of autism with immune abnormalities and neural hypoperfusion (decreased blood flow). The authors speculate that stem cells might be used to stimulate repair of neural damage.
Four of the authors are associated with the Institute of Cellular Medicine which indicates that it is now accepting some autistic patients for stem cell therapy:
Stem Cell Therapy is Available Now The Institute of Cellular Medicine (ICM) is currently accepting patients with the following conditions for stem cell therapy:
http://www.cellmedicine.com/
Stem Cell Therapy for Autism Thomas E Ichim1
, Fabio Solano2 , Eduardo Glenn2 , Frank Morales2 , Leonard Smith2 , George Zabrecky3 and Neil H Riordan1 ,4 
1Medistem Laboratories Inc, Tempe, Arizona, USA 2Institute for Cellular Medicine, San Jose, Costa Rica 3Americas Medical Center, Ridgefield, Connecticut, USA 42027 E. Cedar Street Suite 102 Tempe, AZ 85281, USAJournal of Translational Medicine 2007, 5:30 doi:10.1186/1479-5876-5-30
Autistic disorder, or autism is the most common form of ASD. Although several neurophysiological alterations have been associated with autism, immune abnormalities and neural hypoperfusion appear to be broadly consistent. These appear to be causative since correlation of altered inflammatory responses, and hypoperfusion with symptology is reported. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are in late phases of clinical development for treatment of graft versus host disease and Crohn's Disease, two conditions of immune dysregulation. Cord blood CD34+ cells are known to be potent angiogenic stimulators, having demonstrated positive effects in not only peripheral ischemia, but also in models of cerebral ischemia. Additionally, anecdotal clinical cases have reported responses in autistic children receiving cord blood CD34+ cells. We propose the combined use of MSC and cord blood CD34+cells may be useful in the treatment of autism.http://www.translational-medicine.com/content/5/1/30
http://www.translational-medicine.com/content/pdf/1479-5876-5-30.pdf
16 comments:
Sounds interesting (and they don't use embryo stem cells) but you have to go to Mexico or Costa Rica to get treatment. A bit out of my price range for something you're not fairly certain is going to work.
I assume if the results back up the theory that stem cell treatment for autism would become more readily available, in Canada anyway, if not in the US.
I doubt very much that a hare will come out of this bush. Everybody is crazy about stem cells nowadays. They are fashionable. They are expected to cure everything. We'll see.
A year or two ago, I've read about a doctor treating severe neurological problems by stem cell transplantation in China (alas, can't find the link now). After the transplantation, a patient with spinal cord injury said, "I feel the wind touch my legs for the first time in 10 years".
I asked myself, why did he report recovery of sensory function and not of motor function? Because you can easily imagine that you are sensing something but cannot fool yourself or anybody else that you are moving your leg if it doesn't move.
"I doubt very much that a hare will come out of this bush. Everybody is crazy about stem cells nowadays. They are fashionable. They are expected to cure everything. We'll see."
What comes out of it, or not, is for the future to decide. The authors of the study did not make any grandiose promises. They simply called for more controlled scientific research on stem cell therapy. I think they made a strong and compelling case in support of that call.
One thing is certain, if we do no further research then we can be absolutely certain nothing will change, no improvements will be found.
It is really terrific that Medistem and Cellmedicine have published and shared their ideas with the world. It is only by "standing on the shoulder of giants" that medical research...and all human endevours..succeed.
The most interesting thing I found about the paper was not just the possible use of stem cells for regeneration, but for immune modulation. The ability of mesenchymal stem cells to "reprogram" the faulty immune system in autistic children is definately worthy of investigation.
I just went there with my 7 year old son. You can read about my son on my blog www.recoveringMatthew.blogspot.com
we have also been in the news about 5 times now, talking about Adult Stem Cell and Autism.
Daniel Faiella
July776@aol.com
I have a son with autism and am very interested in Stem Cell. Because of this a friend and I have created a Yahoo group devoted to stem cell for autism:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/StemCell-for-Autism/
Institute for Cell Medicine (ICM) is the first lab that produced the most significant improvement in a child who was severely autistic in short amount of time. The child is now nearly indistinguishable according to her parents. At the time of her first treatment ICM offered CD34 cells only at 20 million count in 4 treatments during one week. However since then, they changed their treatment protocol and added high dose of mesenchymal cells. All the available literature on mesenchymal stem cell point to compatibility factor and rejection by the immune system, and yet ICM does not check for compatibility. The children who got the cells with this newer protocol did not improve (14 million mesenchymal and 6 million CD34 cell combined).
Autism treatment is a parent initiated grassroots effort, which requires parents do plenty of homework before using any costly and alternative procedure. I still maintain that stem cell can be a key to recovery from autism at least for significant number of children but a collaborative effort should initiate that does not solely about profit in order to find and fine tune the right protocol for autism.
H
The lies this person says, is reason most dont want to help our kids.
Maybe you think the drug companys in the USA do it for free huh, lol
Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, March 2008
Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are of great therapeutic interest because they are already known to be not only regenerative but also immune privileged and immune modulatory, unlike most stem cells. Such characteristics eliminate any need for matching MSCs immunologically to the recipient, and because of these "immune privileged" properties, the biotech company Osiris Therapeutics holds a number of patents on MSCs for a variety of allogeneic uses of MSCs such as the intravenous delivery of these stem cells in the treatment of patients with heart failure. Now the extraordinary properties of MSCs have been applied to yet another medical application, namely, to expediting the process of wound healing.
Dr. Yoshikawa and colleagues at the Nara Medical University in Japan have successfully mimicked an artificial dermis layer by culturing bone marrow-derived MSCs on a collagen sponge from which the layer of dermal cells was then implanted subcutaneously into an immune-compromised mouse and explanted after ten days, at which time histological examination revealed the differentiation of the MSCs into dermal tissue in vivo.
The procedure was then applied to 20 human patients who were suffering from pathological skin conditions that were refractory to conventional medical therapies, and for whom the same type of autologous "grafts" were applied to the wound areas after having been created from each patient's own bone marrow-derived MSCs and the collagen matrix. From this procedure, 18 of the 20 patients were found to have significantly improved.
The procedure offers a promising new therapy for even some of the most severe types of wounds
show us your literature on mesenchymal stem cell
Hi I am a mother with a 3 year old son with Autism. My family and I went to Mexico 7 months ago and and got cord blood stem cell therapy for our son. Our sons improvements have been a miracle in our case. We are so very pleased with the results we are going to San Jose Costa Rica March 2009 to do it again. To any parent go for it.
My son is 2 year 9 months old. I am taking my son to ICM. I hope he will recover from the treatment.
We are seriously considering spending the money to take our autistic son outside the country for the stem cell treatment. Does anybody know if we here in the US will be doing this anytime soon? It's amazing "we" the "Powerhouse" are so far behind in such research while the rise of autism increases yearly!
I'm very excited about taking my son to Costa Rica or Mexico for the treatments even though the cost is very high but, what else is there that has made such a huge difference in a child?
I have a three-yr. old son w/ autism and have recently saved stem cells from my newborn. Im looking into getting them administered to my 3 yr. old. How much does it run and who should I speak to?
Does anyone have any good result/outcome with stem-cell on a teenage/young adult autistic child?? Before we put our son through that type of drama and money we like to see what the percent of success rate there is in teen/young adults.
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