This article originated a year ago but is now being renewed by CTV in Canada
CTV.ca News Staff
Date: Sun. Nov. 16 2008 10:44 PM ET
An experimental treatment offered at a clinic in Israel may alleviate multiple sclerosis symptoms, even in patients who have an untreatable form of the disease.
Lead researcher Prof. Dimitrios Karussis of Hadassah Medical Center and his colleagues at the Tel Aviv Medical Center have pioneered a procedure whereby they remove a patient's own mesenchymal stem cells - cells in our bone marrow that can turn into heart tissue, bone, cartilage and nerve cells - grow them into large quantities in a laboratory and inject them back into the patient.
Patients who have multiple sclerosis find their immune systems attacking nerve cells, which leads to a range of symptoms from fatigue to severe disability, blindness and even paralysis.
Early data from about 25 patients suggests that the mesenchymal stem cell treatment can repair existing damage to the nerve cells, Dr. Shimon Slavin of the Tel Aviv Medical Center told CTV News.
"The secret is to do the treatment of choice in the early stages of the disease before irreversible changes occur," Slavin said. Researchers are also testing the technique on a number of other neurodegenerative diseases.
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