Spinal cord injuries

Bangalore hospital treats paralyzed patients with stem cell therapy

In what could signal a leap forward in the treatment of spinal cord injuries, the Bangalore Institute of Regenerative Medicine at Live 100 Hospital claims to have successfully used stem cell therapy to restore feeling to people paralysed by injuries, accidents or natural causes.

According to the hospital, its doctors have been treating paralysed below the neck patients using the concept of regenerative medicine and stem cell therapy for quite some time before making the results public. The patients who benefited by the treatment walk out of the hospital using a crutch or walker, with some showing “tremendous improvement”.

Balakrishan Baldev, 42, had been bedridden for the last ten years on account of damaged spine and wrong treatment. The first patient to be benefitted by the stem cell therapy, his eyes glistened with tears as he walked again after he underwent the surgery of spinal cord in May this year and has gained 95 per cent sensation. The development raises the possibility that spinal injury victims could walk again.

Dr H N Nagaraj, chairman and managing director, Live 100 Hospital, told India Medical Times, “The concept of regenerative medicine was started by me way back in 2002 in a laboratory environment until 2010. We started treating patients in 2010 and approximately 40-42 patients have undergone stem cell surgery since then. The results have been satisfactory and few have recovered to a great extent. While it might take less time for some, for others the healing and regeneration could take a long time.”

“As the spine injuries lead to acute loss of spinal cord vascularity and damage spinal cord, we identify and treat them using great precautions that repair the patients’ spinal cords and encourage the cords to heal,” he said.

“The hospital receives patients from different parts of the country and the world. People from Pakistan, Mexico and Yemen have been pouring in for the treatment. The conception that the treatment is expensive is not entirely true. As the treatment gives you focused therapy, a patient does not spend his money on wrong and unnecessary treatments hence every penny spent is worth the results he get. But still, at our hospital, we do take into account the income factor of the patient and do give subsidy to the needy. Our objective is to help everybody,” he added.

The therapy has also given a new lease of life to Khalid Abdullah, a 40-year-old soldier from Yemen who underwent a surgery of the spinal cord at the hospital after a bullet hit him four years ago. Before choosing India, he had visited several countries for the treatment. Paralysed waist down, he partly regained sensation in the legs after the surgery.

“Two levels of his spinal cord were crushed, a part of the spinal cord was removed in the surgery as it was damaged. He underwent stem cell treatment six months ago and has regained sensation in his lower limbs,” Dr Nagaraj said.

“My future plan is evolve the stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine in a fully functional department and involve some of the finest doctors in the field. We want to use stem cell for the treatment of other diseases too like diabetes etc. We want to make a strong team of doctors that would also include a neuro psychiatrist as the patients affected by trauma are generally disturbed and have a tendency to go into depression,” Dr Nagaraj said.

Several breakthrough researches in this area have corroborated that stem cells can develop into replacement cells for damaged organs or body parts. Unravelling the potential that stem cells hold, an answer to several diseases that are at present incurable could be discovered.

source: Twikle

New treatment ‘could help spine injury patients walk’

Scientists say they have discovered that breathing low oxygen levels in short bursts could help improve the mobility of people with spinal cord injuries. This is according to a study published in the journal Neurology.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is defined as disruption to the nerves attached to the spinal cord in the back. When the nerves are damaged, this can lead to reduced feeling in the body and loss of mobility, such as the inability to walk.

According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center (NSCISC), there are approximately 12,000 new cases of spinal cord injury in the US every year.

Randy D. Trumbower, of Emory University in Atlanta, GA, and a study author of this most recent research, says that around 59% of all spinal injuries are incomplete. This means damage to the spinal cord is not absolute, so there is potential for the spinal cord to recover.

“Unfortunately, usually a person affected by this type of spinal injury seldom recovers the ability to walk normally,” Trumbower adds.

But the investigators believe their new research may give promise to those who have lost mobility as a result of spinal cord injuries.

Patients exposed to hypoxia treatment

To reach their findings, the investigators analyzed 19 individuals who suffered spine injuries between levels C2 (in the neck) and T12 (in the thoracic vertebrae) of the spine.

Participants had no joint shortening, some controlled ankle, knee and hip movements, and they had the ability to walk a minimum of one step without human help.

The subjects were split into two groups. In the first group, nine people were exposed to either hypoxia – short periods of breathing low oxygen levels – or a sham treatment (control treatment) in which they received only normal oxygen levels. After 2 weeks, they received the other treatment.

The hypoxia treatment involved subjects breathing low oxygen levels through a mask for 90 seconds, followed by 60 seconds of normal oxygen levels, and they were required to do this for 40 minutes a day for 5 days.

The second group received either the hypoxia or sham treatment, then they were asked to walk as fast as they could for 30 minutes within 1 hour of the treatment. They were also switched to the other treatment 2 weeks later.

The researchers monitored the participants’ walking speed and endurance before the study began, on the first and fifth days of treatment, and 1 and 2 weeks after treatment ceased.

Endurance ‘increased by 250%’

The findings revealed that on a 10-meter walking test, participants who received the hypoxia treatment walked an average of 3.8 seconds faster, compared with when they breathed only normal oxygen levels.

On a test of how far subjects could walk in 6 minutes, those who received the hypoxia treatment plus walking increased their endurance by an average of 100 meters – a 250% increase, compared with those who received sham treatment plus walking.

Overall, it was found that all participants showed improved walking ability. In detail, over 30% increased their walking speed by a minimum of 1/10 of a meter per second, and 70% increased their endurance by at least 50 meters.

In an editorial linked to the study, Michael G. Fehlings, of the University of Toronto in Canada, hypothesizes how the hypoxia treatment may work:

“One question this research brings to light is how a treatment that requires people to take in low levels of oxygen can help movement, let alone in those with compromised lung function and motor abilities.

A possible answer is that spinal serotonin, a neuro transmitter, sets off a cascade of changes in proteins that help restore connections in the spine.”

The investigators warn that chronic or sustained hypoxia should only be carried out by trained individuals within a supervised medical environment, or it could cause serious injury

Source: Medical News today