Intravenous injection of bone marrow-derived stem cells (MSCs) in patients with spinal cord injury led to significant improvement in motor functions, researchers from Yale University and Japan report Feb. 18 in the Journal of Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery.
Substantial improvements in key functions – such as the ability to walk or use their hands – were seen in more than half of the patients within weeks of stem cell injection, the researchers report. No substantial side effects were reported.
The patients had suffered a non-penetrating spinal cord injury several weeks prior to implantation of the stem cells, in many cases from falls or minor trauma. Their symptoms include loss of motor function and coordination, sensory loss, as well as bowel and bladder dysfunction. The stem cells were prepared from the patient’s own bone marrow, via a culture protocol that took several weeks in a specialized cell processing center. The cells in this series were injected intravenously, with each patient serving as their own control. The results were not blinded and there were no placebo controls.
Yale scientists Jeffery D. Kocsis, professor of neurology and neuroscience, and Stephen G. Waxman, professor of neurology, neuroscience, and pharmacology, were senior authors of the study, which was conducted with researchers at Sapporo Medical University in Japan. The Sapporo team’s principal investigators, Osamu Honmou and Masanori Sasaki, both hold adjunct professor positions in neurology at Yale.
Kocsis and Waxman emphasize that additional studies will be needed to confirm the results of this preliminary, unblinded study. They also stress that this can take years. Despite the challenges, they remain optimistic.
Similar results with stem cells in stroke patients increase our confidence that this approach may be clinically useful, ”noted Kocsis. “This clinical study is the result of many years of extensive preclinical laboratory work with MSCs between Yale and Sapporo colleagues.”
The idea that we may be able to restore function after brain and spinal cord injuries using the patient’s own stem cells has intrigued us for years, ”said Waxman. “Now we have a hint, in humans, that it is possible.”