Liver stem cells

What better argument than that of stem cells to start the new year: totipotent cells have been used to treat serious liver disease. In Brazil, 15 people were chosen from those on the waiting list for liver transplantation and were – on a voluntary basis – subjected to cell therapy. "We are still in a strictly experimental phase," underlines Luiz Guilherme Costa Lyra, the hepatologist coordinating research at the Sao Rafael si Salvador hospital in Bahia, an offshoot of the San Raffaele hospital in Milan. "And it must be very clear that the therapy is not available for any patient other than those we have in the protocol, it is useless for someone to write to us to enter the study". «However» continues the researcher «we must admit that the results are decidedly interesting and we intend to continue along the path we have taken». Stem cell -based therapy had already passed the safety and efficacy tests on animals and the safety tests on humans, and three years ago the clinical efficacy trials on humans also began. The specialists of Sao Rafael in Salvador involved in the experiment a group of people whose only hope was a liver transplant, but who would hardly have received the organ in time given their position on the waiting list. And cell therapy has allowed for a significant improvement in their conditions. Tests began in 2000 on animals, where stem cells were able to cure severe liver problems: liver fibrosis, caused by infections, toxic substances or alcohol abuse. The procedure consists of withdrawing some bone marrow from the iliac crest (the anterior projection of the pelvis) with a syringe, then transferring the tissue to the laboratory for isolation and processing of the cells, and then reinfusing them into the liver of the patient through the hepatic artery, all within two and a half hours. The good results of this experiment, supported by contemporary, analogous experiences of two research groups in Japan and Great Britain, convinced the Bahian researchers to make the "leap" towards the test of efficacy (and no longer just safety) of therapy in humans. It must be clarified that this experiment was possible in Brazil because the law in this State does not oblige the verification on primates before moving on to humans and therefore some time will have to pass before it is legalized in Europe. [by courier ]