Cord Blood Stem Cells Treatment for Children

I just couldn't believe it. I read in one discussion forum where one person made a big stink about a current year long study using a deaf baby's own cord blood stem cells to treat the baby's own sensorineural deafness (which has so far appears to continue to help restore the baby's hearing loss) saying it needs to be experimented on animals first to determine the safety of cord blood stem cells. First off, the blood cord stem cells are compatible only to the baby and not in some animal. That sort of ill-conceived logic was enough to make my jaw drop. Secondly, cord blood stem cells are being used to treat a variety of conditions and even injuries such as Traumatic Brain Injury in children in one study which uses the same IV infusion process as with deaf children in a hearing loss treatment Phase I study.

A ground-breaking clinical trial is now underway at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) is an innovative step in a growing number of studies exploring the potential of stem cell-based therapies to help initiate repair and induce healing of damaged brain tissue. The study is being performed in partnership with Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital, UTHealth's major children's teaching hospital.

The trial will involve children who have sustained traumatic brain injuries and who have access to their own umbilical cord blood stem cells, which were banked at birth. Children who meet the trial qualifications will travel to Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital to receive an IV infusion of their cord blood stem cells. They will then be followed at six months, one year and two years.

"The reason we have become interested in cord blood cells is because of the possibility of autologous therapy, meaning using your own cells. And the preclinical models have demonstrated some really fascinating neurological preservation effects to really support these Phase 1 trials," says Charles S. Cox, M.D., Children's Fund Distinguished Professor of Pediatric Surgery and Pediatrics at the UTHealth Medical School, director of the Pediatric Trauma Program at Children's Memorial Hermann Hosptial, and principle investigator of the trial. "There's anecdotal experience in other types of neurological injuries that reassures us in terms of the safety of the approach and there are some anecdotal hints at it being beneficial in certain types of brain injury."

The Phase I safety study will enroll 10 children ages 18 months to 17 years who have suffered moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and are within 6 to 18 months of their injury.

People need to understand the potential self-healing (literally) factors of using your own cord blood stem cells. According to The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) on cord blood stem cells:

Cord blood is one source of stem cells that has shown promise in preclinical research and is now being explored in experimental treatments for patients with brain injury. In the preclinical or lab setting, research has shown that cord blood stem cells have the ability to divide and change into neural-like cells. Additionally, these stem cells have been shown to migrate to the area of injury, and to secrete therapeutic factors, which may help repair brain damage. Further preliminary findings from studies underway at UTHealth indicate that cord blood stem cells may also alter the body's immune response to injury, by interacting directly with the organs and cells of the immune system that enable the body to better repair itself.

In other words, you could possibly (and literally so) heal thyself using your own cord blood stem cells by enabling your body, in the example of hearing loss in babies, to better repair itself. Especially among babies who gets treated early on and with the help of their own cord blood stem cells, and if it turns out to be successful for the full restoration on hearing, then it becomes a cure. This process would allow deaf babies early on take advantage of the 4 year window of opportunity to take advantage of the active auditory cortex and be able to grow up as a hearing person in every respect.  With this Traumatic Brain Injury study and the Hearing Loss study.  We should know more the results of these studies by next year on whether cord blood stem cells treatment is a success or not.

The New Stem Cells Generation - going from deaf to hearing.

The stuff of science fiction has now arrived where Madeline becomes the first of many toddlers born deaf to get their first cord- blood stem cells treatments in the effort to restore their sensorineural hearing loss. This procedure continues to show success and Madeline's hearing continues to improve.

Madeline Cooper, who is nearly 2 years old, is the first person in the nation to take part in a new Food and Drug Administration-approved study of stem cell treatment of sensorineural hearing loss.

Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston and California-based Cord Blood Registry will eventually enroll another nine children in this first phase of the study.

Unlike some advertised stem cell treatments that may cost patients tens of thousands of dollars — and, according to critics, are little more than quackery — the Conners paid nothing to take part and have been promised no specific results.

The process is simple: Doctors inject the children with stem cells from their own stored umbilical cords. Because it is the patients’ own blood, there is little chance the treatment will produce side effects.

In theory, the treatment will adjust patients’ immune systems to encourage their bodies to repair themselves. In truth, researchers have no idea if it will work.

Earlier Italian studies on mice concluded that stem cells may help the body repair damaged cells in the ear and restore some hearing in these types of cases, according to a 2008 published report in the University of South Florida journal Cell Transplantation.

Madeline's hearing loss has gone from extreme to moderate hearing loss since undergoing the treatment. A definite improvement. This stem cell treatment will continue and may take a few years to help fully restore hearing loss. We will not know how fast this rate of restoration will take place over the next several months to a few years. We will know more once the Cooper family head back to Texas in July, and again in January of 2013, to get a more detailed assessment of Madeline’s improvement.

This will be the start of a new generation of cord-blood stem cell babies and toddlers born deaf to become, in theory, hearing with the help of their own blood-cord stem cells. An exciting era in regenerative medicine for parents of deaf children. This new cord-blood stem cell procedure was covered in my blog piece in January 2012 for your review.

Once proved successful parents of deaf babies will see this as the preferred treatment to help restore their child's hearing loss. This will certainly be a much preferable route (and cheaper, too) than to choose cochlear implant.  Now the question becomes, will this eventually destroy the cochlear implant industry? Only time will tell.