New ray of hope for MS patients - Bone marrow Stem cell transplant

An amazing experimental medical study is going on at the Ottawa Hospital, led by Ontario neurologist Dr. Mark Freedman and Dr. Harold Atkins, a bone-marrow transplant specialist.

The subjects participating in this experiment got bone-marrow stem cell transplants and are enjoying mysterious remission of their disease. Lead author, Dr. Mark Freedman is not sure why.

"Not a single patient and it's almost seven years, has ever had a relapse," Freedman said.

Multiple Sclerosis or MS(also known as disseminated sclerosis or encephalomyelitis disseminata), with an incidence of 100 in 100,000 in the United States and Europe, is by far the most common neurodegenerative disease. Between 55,000 and 75,000 Canadians have multiple sclerosis. MS is a chronic, demyelinating disease of the brain and spinal cord, collectively the central nervous system (CNS).

The cause of MS or multiple sclerosis is not known, though it's thought that the body's own immune systemdefine attacks the nervous system. It can cause mild illness in some people while causing permanent disability in others. Some of the most common symptoms are impaired vision, weakness and paralysis of muscles, numbness, bladderdefine and bowel problems, slurred speech, loss of balance and muscle coordination, memory loss, depressiondefine and mood swings. Though, treatments are available to slow the progress of the disease but there is no cure.

Some think that the disease is caused by some sort of trigger, possibly in the environment, that starts the process. MS occurs more frequently at higher latitudes. Tasmania, for example, has a higher incidence of MS than mainland Australia, although no one knows why.

Dr. Freed conducted the experiment in order to study how the disease unfolds. The experts destroyed the bone marrow and thus the immune system of the MS patients. Then the patients were transplanted back with the stem cells, known as hematopoeitic stem cells, blood-forming cells taken from the bone marrow.

Talking at the stem cell seminar at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Freedman said, "We weren't looking for improvement."

"The actual study was to reboot the immune system."

Adding further he said, once the disease is diagnosed, "you've already missed the boat. We figured we would reboot the immune system and watch the disease evolve. It failed."

The researchers thought that after destroying the bone marrow the symptoms of the patients will improve within a year, instead improvements began 2 years after the treatment.

"We have yet to get the disease to restart," he said. Patients are not developing some of the characteristic brain lesions seen in MS. "But we are seeing this repair."

Marjorie Bowman, study co-ordinator said that the early results of the trial will be published this summer which aims to treat 24 patients in total.

She also told that a patient died as a result of the chemotherapy, (which is so strong, patients have 1 in 20 chance of dying).

The $4 million study is funded by MS Scientific Research Foundation and is based on the theory that pure stem cells will find their way into the bone marrow and build up a new immune system in the patient, free of MS.

The trial began in 2001. All the subjects are between the ages of 18 and 50 and have either failed to respond to conventional MS drug therapy or were too sick to ever begin conventional treatment.