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Medical Forum / General / General / January 2007Head Trauma
Hello, My brother sustained head trauma in a car accident about 20 years ago. He lost his peripheral vision, sense of smell, and hearing in one ear. Given all this damage he still functions well. I am wondering if stem cell research offers any promise to restore my brother to full functioning. TIA, Dan >Hello, > >My brother sustained head trauma in a car accident about 20 years ago. >He lost his peripheral vision, sense of smell, and hearing in one ear. >Given all this damage he still functions well. I am wondering if stem >cell research offers any promise to restore my brother to full functioning. Interesting question. The first thing to understand is that there are no accepted treatments for anything at this point using stem cells (other than the long-established bone marrow transplant). The field is in its infancy. As to what may become possible, who knows? But a requirement will be -- almost certainly -- to know the specific defect, at the cellular level. bob >> Hello, >> [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > bob My understanding is that all his damage is nerves so I thought with the experiments of repairing rats severed spines to 75% function may mean other nerve path ways may be able to be repaired eventually. Dan >>> Hello, >>> [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] >experiments of repairing rats severed spines to 75% function may mean >other nerve path ways may be able to be repaired eventually. Good thought. The reservation is about the time scale of making it happen; the principle is fine. The rat work you refer to is promising, but it takes a while to translate such things to humans. People are extremely cautious in developing new medical procedures for humans. One can argue that they are too cautious, but there is fear about doing harm. Of particular concern is long term effects, which of course take a while to show up. One consequence is that early work is usually done with those with severe conditions, as they may be more willing to assume the risk of something experimental. One thing you might do is to check out the US govt site on clinical trials. (clinicaltrials.gov). That may help you stay aware of what is happening. bob >>>> Hello, >>>> [quoted text clipped - 37 lines] > > bob I know most of the medical stem cell research is moving out of the USA (to SE Asia?). Are there other websites to keep track of the whole world? Dan >> One thing you might do is to check out the US govt site on clinical >> trials. (clinicaltrials.gov). That may help you stay aware of what is [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >I know most of the medical stem cell research is moving out of the USA >(to SE Asia?). Are there other websites to keep track of the whole world? Perhaps. But the US site may contain more than you might expect. It lists anything that involves the NIH at all -- even if the work is done overseas. In fact, if you look at the "advanced search" page, you will find a box to select the country in which the trial is being done. Remember, only one type of stem cell research is actually restricted in the US -- that on embryonic stem cells (ESC). I do not know if any ESC trials are in progress elsewhere. If you google on something like clinical trials databases Europe You will get hits. I didn't try to sort them out. If you find something good, let us know. (There is much interest in making information about clinical trials more public, so such databases should become more common and accessible.) bob |
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