Stem cell therapy improves stroke recovery

Five patients have undergone a new treatment for stroke as part of a pilot study conducted by doctors at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and scientists at Imperial College London (ICL).

According to results, the therapy is completely safe and all five patients have shown improvements in clinical measures of disability as measured on the modified Rankin Scale.

This type of study, which has been published in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine, has never been performed on human trials in UK before.

“The improvements we saw in these patients are very encouraging

Lead author Soma Banerjee

The patients were all treated with the one-off therapy within seven days of suffering a severe stroke. The technique utilises a set of stem cells found in bone marrow called CD34+ cells.

According to ICL, previous research had shown that treatment using these types of cells can significantly improve recovery from stroke in animals.

The cells, which do not develop into brain cells, are thought to release chemicals that trigger the growth of new brain tissue and new blood vessels in the area damaged by stroke.

The ICL researchers claim early treatment may improve the chances of recovery.

Lead author Soma Banerjee said: “This study showed that the treatment appears to be safe and that it’s feasible to treat patients early when they might be more likely to benefit.”

To perform the trial, doctors took a sample of bone marrow from each patient.

The CD34+ cells were isolated from the sample and then infused into an artery that supplies the brain. Until now, no previous trial has selectively used CD34+ cells so early after a patient had suffered a stroke.

Although the trial was designed to assess the safety and tolerability of the treatment, the patients all displayed some improvements in their condition in clinical tests over a six-month follow-up period, the researchers say.

“The improvements we saw in these patients are very encouraging, but it’s too early to draw definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of the therapy. We need to do more tests to work out the best dose and timescale for treatment before starting larger trials,” Banerjee said.

Paul Bentley from the Department of Medicine at ICL said the research group is currently looking at new brain scanning techniques to monitor the effects of cells once they have been injected.

Likewise, principal investigator on the study Nagy Habib said: “These are early but exciting data worth pursuing. Scientific evidence from our lab further supports the clinical findings and our aim is to develop a drug, based on the factors secreted by stem cells, that could be stored in the hospital pharmacy so that it is administered to the patient immediately following the diagnosis of stroke in the emergency room.”

Habib suggests this may diminish the minimum time to therapy and therefore optimise outcome. Now the hard work starts to raise funds for this exciting research.

The research team will now be applying for funding to perform a larger study in due course, Bentley told LaboratoryTalk.