Spinal Cord Injury

Prior to a few years ago there were few options of the treatment of spinal cord injury.  The first reported case of a spinal cord case improving after umbilical cord stem cells came from South Korea in 2004.

Our group has treated 30 spinal cord patients. 4 of whom have achieved what could be considered to be extraordinary results.  The first patient, a 23 year old who presented 4 months after his motorcycle accident with no sensation or motor function below the level of the nipple line.  He was treated with only intravenous cord blood CD34 cells and mesenchymal cells.  Within 10 days he recovered all function and sensation to his pelvis.  This made a significant improvement in his quality of like because he was able to transfer himself and turn over.  After subsequent treatments (6 months later) he regained much of the function of his legs, bowel and bladder control and sexual function.  One of the most interesting aspects of this case is that the first, dramatic, improvement occurred after only intravenous infusions--no direct injections into the spinal cord.  We believe the response was due to revascularization of the areas of damage (without a blood supply, which was crushed during the injury, the neurons are unable to transmit messages.  The most spectacular case was of a 26 year old man who suffered damage during n airplane crash.  Upon being seen he was paralyzed below the level of T-11.  He was first treated with umbilcal cord 34 cells and mesenchymal cells both intravenously and intrathecally (in the spinal column) multiple times 8 months after his accident.  Within 6 months of treatment and physical therapy he is able to drive and walk with the assistance of crutches--he graduated from the wheelchair to the walker to braces and now to crutches.  In general, the younger the patient and the sooner after injury the treatment is initiated, the better the outcome.

Two seminal articles on the use of bone marrow (from the patient) stem cells for the treatment of spinal cord injury have been published by groups in Japan (case report) Turkey (One year follow up of multiple patients) The Japan group reported improvement of neurological function in a single patient after treatment with his own bone marrow stem cells injected directly into the spinal column--they also propose a clinical trial based on the results.  The group from Turkey reported on the use of bone marrow stem cells for spinal cord injury in a cohort of patients and provided impressive one year follow up data.

An article by Taiwanese scientists showed how a type of stem cell found in the tissue of umbilical cords (mesenchymal stem cell) can help to repair severed spinal cords in rats.  They placed the umbilical cord cells on either side of the cut spinal cord and in the "gap."  Restoration of function was seen in the treated animals.  One of the most interesting findings was that the cells themselves didn't repair the spinal cord, as there were very few "donor" cells in the repaired spinal cord--they concluded that the MSCs secreted factors that allowed the natural repair and sprouting of the spinal cord to help reconnect the cut ends.