Thursday, December 17, 2009

Australian man with MS able to walk again after stem cell treatment

From The Telegraph in the UK:


Ben Leahy (pictured), 20, was diagnosed with the disease in 2008 and lost the ability to stand within a few months.

However, a new procedure to combat the disease has helped him regain his health and he is now walking again.

The treatment targets the immune system of multiple sclerosis patients, which turns in on itself causing damage to nerves which can lead to blurred vision, loss of balance and paralysis.

Doctors carried out a new technique to remove stem cells from his bone marrow before using chemicals to destroy all his immune cells.

The stem cells were then transplanted back into Mr Leahy's body to replenish the immune system – effectively resetting it.

Dr Colin Andrews, a neurologist from Canberra, said the positive results had surprised doctors.

"At the moment there's a good chance we may have arrested the disease," he said.

"He walks pretty well, there's only some mild weakness in his right leg and some visual loss in one eye and apart from that he's very intact.".

Dr Andrews said doctors had previously been reluctant to use the technique because of the risk of death was estimated to be around eight per cent several years ago.

But improvements in the techniques meant the risk was now one per cent and Dr Andrews said the outstanding results of Mr Leahy's treatment meant it could be used on more patients in the future.

"It sets another landmark for people to work towards," he said.

Mr Andrews said that for some patients there would be a 60 to 80 per cent chance that the progress of the disease could be stopped and many would have a good chance of their symptoms being reversed.

Mr Leahy's mother Prue, who was afraid her son was going to die, said she did not expect to see him walking again.

"What I got was more than I could have ever imagined or hoped for," she said.

Mr Leahy is now planning to return to school and hopes to study physics.

His case is not the first time stem cell injections have been used to reverse the symptoms of MS but the remarkable success of his treatment suggests the procedure could become more widespread.

Earlier this year scientists managed to reverse the symptoms of the disease, which affects about 85,000 people in Britain, by using stem cells from patients' body fat.

In results reported in the Lancet, some patients in the trial were left free from seizures and better able to walk after the treatment.

Last year experts suggested that stem cell therapy could be a "cure" for MS within the next 15 years.