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Transplantation in 7 patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease
Researchers at Bangalore in India have collected the bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells of 7 patients aged 22-62 years who had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease on average for 15 years and transplanted them into the sublateral ventricular area of the brain on one side only by means of stereotaxic surgery. Each patient received only his/her cells so that there would not be any risk of rejection. The patients were followed-up for 10 to 36 months. No patients had important side effects. Three of the 7 patients experienced an improvement of not only subjective, but also objective symptoms according to the neurologist (mean improvement in UPDRS score by 23% in OFF when medication did not work and by 38% in ON when they did). Furthermore, two of them were able to reduce the dosage of anti-parkinson therapy. These results are encouraging and the researchers are continuing their studies. |
