Tokyo: A stem cell treatment demonstrated improvement in the motor function of two out of four patients suffering from spinal cord injuries, according to Japanese scientists conducting the first clinical study of its kind.
Currently, there is no effective treatment for paralysis caused by severe spinal cord injuries, which affect over 150,000 patients in Japan alone, with 5,000 new cases occurring annually.
Researchers at Keio University in Tokyo are conducting their study using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), created by stimulating mature, specialized cells back into a juvenile state.
These cells can then be induced to mature into various cell types, with the Keio researchers specifically using iPS-derived neural stem cells. The university reported on Friday that the motor function scores of two patients improved following an operation to implant more than two million iPS-derived cells into their spinal cords.
After a year of monitoring, no serious adverse events were observed in any of the four cases, the university stated. The primary objective of the research was to assess the safety of injecting these cells.
Public broadcaster NHK reported that one of the two patients who experienced improvement was an elderly man who sustained the injury in an accident.
