The city finally got a dedicated centre that offers stem cell therapy for spinal cord injuries at affordable rates. The civic-run Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital inaugurated the state’s first Stem Cell Genetic Research Centre on Tuesday.
“Of the eight patients to whom we have provided the stem cell treatment, six have shown positive results,” said Dr Prerna Badhe, stem cell consultant at the the hospital.
Eight years after the spinal cord injury, Sunderlal was paralysed completely. Finally, he found hope in the stem cell therapy and regained sensation in his lower limbs after the treatment. Also, the treatment that costs lakhs was done virtually free of cost. Like Sunderlal, there are 200 other patients waiting to undergo therapy the hospital. Hospitals like All India Institute for Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and PGI, Chandigarh, have already tried stem cell therapy for cardiac problems.
The centre is now equipped with both machinery and technical expertise to treat patients with spinal cord injury, brain injury and many other neurological disorders. Stem cell therapy is a promising treatment to cure diabetes, especially type I diabetes, by rejuvenating pancreatic insulin, and cardiac problems, parkinsons disease, eye injury, macular degeneration etc. “It’s all about application of stem cells. It can gel very well and knows its job,” said Dr Alok Sharma, professor of neurology and head of the department at LTMG Hospital.
“Stem cells taken from patient’s own bone marrow —autologus stem cell — is washed, segregated and injected on to the affected area. The body uses its own healthy cells to treat damaged cells,” said Dr Sharma.
“Stem cell therapy is also known as replacement therapy or regenerative therapy. It multiplies, connects, releases neurotransmitters, acts as growth factors, revascularises and reduces scar formation. Also, it has no side effects. It does not require immunosuppressants which are painful,” said Dr Badhe. “It promotes growth of damaged tracts, bridges the lesion sites, repairs damaged nyelin, replenishes cells lost in the injury. It’s better than drugs and biomedical devises. The thearpy has minimal or no reactions and reserves the biological process,” said Dr Badhe.
According to Dr Badhe, not all the patients with spinal cord injuries qualify for the therapy. “We clinically evaluate the patient on American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) scoreboard. Post accident, doctors remove the debris. Stem cells work as a fixing agent for the damaged nerves in the spine” said Dr Badhe. Doctors insist for physiotherapy as it’s very important after the treatment.
As per Dr Sharma, there’re many scientists working in the stem cell research. However, all are working in pre-clinical area, but application of the same into clinical practice are just handful in the country, he said.
“There are very few doctors working on translation medicine. Of the three types of stem cells, doctors are more interested in adult stem cell as it holds a lot of potential apart from being on permissive list of the Government of India. Stem cell collected from the umbilical cord is much of an interest for businessmen, as it is very expensive for hospitals to maintain cord banks. Also, use of the embryonic stem cell has a lot of ethical issues and can cause tumor,” said Dr Sharma.
The Stem Cell Research Center (SCRC) is a center of excellence dedicated to the application of musculoskeletal research focused on the development of...
The Cardiovascular Research Institute (CRI) is the largest division of the MedStar Research Institute and focuses most of its translational and clinical research...
Our mission is to advance the current understanding of the use of stem cells in the treatment of patients with cardiovascular disease. The primary goal...
