This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

As a positive sort of person (in terms of future prospects for those with MS), I have real hope for the stem cell pilot trial taking place in Bristol, England. Further detail on the pilot trial are attached. Similar trials are taking place around the world. Attached is an article about a trial in Lebanon.

Ian

http://www.mstrust.org.uk/downloads/ste ... 0trial.doc

http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?j11 ... 2&w=464753

Very interesting, thanks Ian.

Researchers need to come up with very distinct names to separately identify this type of procedure from the procedure in which you kill the immune system and bone marrow and use the stem cells to regrow the bone marrow.

I can easily see how the general public would just lump all stem cell research into one pot. That isn't accurate and it's not beneficial to this particular branch of research, which I have great hope for in the future.........sounds like maybe the NEAR future.

Just a couple of months ago I read of Dr Scolding saying that the, hopefully not insurmountable, problem was getting the stem cells where they needed to be. Evidently in the time since they've determined, or have evidence, that injecting them into the CSF might do the trick.

Bob

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Had ms for over 19 years now.

Robbie,

The trial you posted is the one where they take stem cells out of your body, kill off the immune system with high dose chemo, and inject the stem cells they took out (and cleaned) back into your body. They hope the new cells will create a new immune systems that doesn't attack the brain / spinal cord (those on the trial have seen some repair and no further disease activity (as yet)).

The Bristol and Lebanon trials do not involve chemo, but take new cells from a person's bone marrow and inject it into them. The idea is that these cells will repair the myelin / nerves.

Hopefully the findings from these different trials will lead to new discoveries / more refined treatment approaches.

Ian

Ian how do you feel about 2.4 million being spent with a total of 18 patients in the trial? gotta start somewhere i guess.

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Had ms for over 19 years now.

Hi Rob,
2.4 mil idoes seem like a lot, but clinical trials are expensive to run and the article doesn't specify how long they plan on continuing to "closely watch" the trial participants.

"Closely watch" probably means they are going to be doing a lot of medical testing on these people and we all know that is expensive.

I noticed that the researcher used the term "second phase" and specifically mentions that they are going to continue watching the 18 already enrolled. He doesn't specifically mention one way or the other about enrolling more registrants in this phase, but if that is planned, that adds to the cost.

Earlier you and I talked about how much the world is spending on killing each other and we wished they would spend a fraction of that on MS research. Well, this is a fraction of that!

Bob

One difference between the Bristol and the Beirut trial is how they put the stem cells (SC) back into the patient (Bristol - IV, Beirut CSF).

How do the SC find their way to the damaged CNS areas?
Can SC cross the blood brain barrier?

What kind of cells do they derive from the bone marrow SC?
What kind of tissue can they repair/replace?
General neuronal SC. Oligodendrocyt precursor cells?

--Frank

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Treatment: CCSVI both IJV ballooned 09/2010, No DMDs, Tysabri on hold after 24 Infusions, after LDN, ABX Wheldon Regime for 1 year.

Frank,

You'll have to be patient. The whole point about these trials is to get answers to these questions. The main thing about using cells from your own bone marrow, is that there should not be rejection problems. Animal experiments have shown that cells find their way to the damaged areas. Initially, the idea was that stem cells might be able to repair myelin. Perhaps they might promote new nerve cells (neurons) and their extensions (axons). We'll have to wait and see.

There are 150 stem cells trials taking place around the world (for other diseases - heart, eyes...). The knowledge / experience gained from all these should be good news for the future.

Ian

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Bob,

The 2.4 million is for Dr Freedman's trial - to allow the researchers to continue their work (not sure if more patients will be treated). Given that to date it appears to have stopped MS / allowed some repair, I'd say this is worth funding. Might not become a widespread treatment but may well answer many questions.

http://registration.akm.ch/einsicht.php ... KEN_ID=900

The bonemarrow is where the scientists get the cells to be transplanted.

http://registration.akm.ch/einsicht.php ... KEN_ID=900

I think we need to wait until the results of the various trials start reporting. This is a cutting edge science and no-one knows how things will pan out. Prof Scolding's work is based on lots of lab research etc. The pilot trial is primarily to test safety. But it is encouraging that other trials of stem cells and MS are happening in humans with the disease not mice. And the stem cells treatments underway for other conditions e.g. repairing eyes / heart tissue etc must have a read across.