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Crohn's Disease
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Posted 7/11/2008 12:06 PM (GMT 0)
Check out the article in todays Ottawa Citizen (Canada) re person who had  a stem cell transplant for CD

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/city/story.html?id=1bdbc884-9c9f-4c93-8976-22fe8618798c&p=3

 

Posted 7/11/2008 1:41 PM (GMT 0)
WOW!
Posted 7/11/2008 9:39 PM (GMT 0)
Nowhere in the article does it state that his CD is cured...
Posted 7/12/2008 12:16 AM (GMT 0)
I didn't realize that it was your opinion, it wasn't clear in your statement, my apologies. Unfortunately, the book is still out in whether stem cells will bring a cure.
Posted 7/12/2008 12:58 AM (GMT 0)
Brilliant! Thanks for posting this.
Posted 7/12/2008 1:22 AM (GMT 0)
I got this article in my paper today too, in my citizen
Posted 7/12/2008 1:54 AM (GMT 0)
"Cure" is such a touchy word still eh...but in the article it does state keeping patients in remission for 20ish months (just going by my crappy memory) but that when patients flared again the severity and length of flare was quite a bit lower compared to before the stem cell therapy, so as I've said before we don't know what form of "cure" will actually come for us in the future, it may be stem cell injections once every couple of yrs for the rest of our lives to be the "cure".

:)
Posted 7/12/2008 6:27 AM (GMT 0)
An allogenic stem cell transplant, or bone marrow transplant, is a cure since your immune system is replaced by that of the donor thereby replacing the original defect. Of course this can cause more fatal side effects like graft vs. host disease. You won't be able to get the disease again however unless the donor's immune system has the same defect.

The procedure in this article is an autologous stem cell transplant in which your own immune system is regrown. You can develop the disease again if you are exposed to the original environmental trigger, since the new immune system has the original flaw.
Posted 7/12/2008 10:47 AM (GMT 0)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are currently two types of stem cell treatment available.

1. A drug such as prochymal which contains adult stem cells is given as an infusion every so often to keep the patient in remission.

2. Stem cells are extracted from the patients marrow, chemo is then used to kill of the immune system and the stem cells are injected back in to form a new one. As far as I know this is very risky (although no one has had any complications as yet) and will offer more of a cure, whilst the prochymal is more of a maintenance therapy.
Posted 7/12/2008 12:29 PM (GMT 0)
3. Four heavy infusions of chemotherapy, which is supposed to reboot the immune system. No actual infusion of stem cells, but my scientist mother said it worked on the same principles as the two treatments mentioned by Jerry. Apparently it's had success in treating MS, and is being tested on Crohn's and a few other auto-immune illnesses.
Posted 7/12/2008 12:30 PM (GMT 0)
I tried a couple stem cell places and they both said they were not ready to treat crohns, but at least there's some hope of a cure hopefully in our lifetime.
Posted 7/12/2008 12:41 PM (GMT 0)
Here's a link to the treatment (#3) I mentioned:

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=14537536
Posted 7/13/2008 4:12 AM (GMT 0)
this is pretty interesting and i live 10 minutes from ottawa (where this article came from) I wonder if I could maybe sneak in on a clinical trial or something :P
Posted 7/14/2008 12:44 AM (GMT 0)

ivy6 said...
Here's a link to the treatment (#3) I mentioned:

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=14537536

There's a drug called Revimmune (it's actually pulsed high-dose cyclosphamide) being used for MS off-label at John Hopkins. The results are pretty amazing so far. They've patented it for all autoimmune diseases, so the trials for it should be starting for Crohn's maybe in year or two.
Posted 7/14/2008 12:59 AM (GMT 0)
Yep, that's the one I was talking about. Thanks, Reef. I couldn't remember its name. Good to know it's soon to be in trial.
Posted 7/14/2008 2:34 AM (GMT 0)
I certainly would not call it a "cure" yet. But then again I have a very strict criteria for that word.
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