Stem cell therapy - Meeting @ KG
In the backdrop of the Association of Spine Surgeons of India challenging claims of a cure for spinal cord injuries through stem cell therapy, a meeting organised by K.G. Hospital here on Sunday was of the firm view that this form of treatment was a boon to patients.Various issues surrounding the therapy were dealt with at the meeting that was organised to discuss its clinical applications. Apart from touching upon the therapy for various organs at the meeting, Director of Nichi-in Centre for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM) Samuel J.K. Abraham also told presspersons that it would work well on patients with liver cirrhosis and spinal cord injuries, provided these people were young and if the level of injuries was low. The therapy was also a boon to persons with peripheral vascular diseases and ischaemic heart diseases. World-wide research was on into the applications of stem cell therapy, including India where many hospitals were trying out this therapy.The hospital said the applications now were safe, as the cells were autologous (from the patients’ own bone marrow). This procedure was permitted by the Indian Council for Medical Research.A press release from the hospital’s Stem Cell Therapy Director Y.Y. Rao said that after breakthrough research in the late Nineties, now there were clinics having such stem cell therapies in countries such as Dominican Republic, Cuba, Russia, Singapore, Bangkok, Germany.Plasticity of the brain has been a known fact since 1890 and for the first time, literature on regenerative capability of mammalian brain was documented in the literature in 1969 by Joseph Altman. (He discovered adult neurogenesis – the creation of new neurons in the adult brain – in the 1960s).
