2023-07-06 19:01:16
The biggest problem with Parkinson’s is that there is no cure, although now there is a new hopeful treatment.
To date, it is the second most common neurodegenerative disease in people over 50 years of age.
It is estimated that in Mexico there is a prevalence of 50 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
For decades, work has been done to develop a treatment that helps stop the progression of Parkinson’s. One of the main motivations is the drastic increase that has been registered worldwide. In part, everything has been generated by the increase in life expectancy.
The answer is in the patient’s cells
Reprogramming a patient’s own skin cells to replace brain cells progressively lost during Parkinson’s disease (PD) has been shown to be technically feasible, a team of researchers from McLean Hospital and Massachusetts General reports. hospital in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Parkinson’s is the second most common degenerative brain disease, and millions of people around the world suffer from its symptoms, which include tremor, stiffness, and difficulty speaking and walking. The progressive loss of a certain type of brain cells called dopaminergic neurons plays a key role in the development of the disease. As described in this report, the use of the patient’s own reprogrammed cells is an advance that overcomes the barriers associated with the use of another individual’s cells.
“Because the cells come from the patient, they are readily available and can be reprogrammed in such a way that they are not rejected after implantation. This represents a milestone in ‘personalized medicine’ for Parkinson’s,” says lead author Kwang-Soo KimPhD, director of the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory at McLean Hospital.
The McLean-Mass General team reprogrammed skin cells from a 69-year-old patient into embryonic-like pluripotent stem cells (called induced pluripotent stem cells) and then differentiated them to take on the characteristics of dopaminergic neurons, which are lose in the Parkinson.
After extensive testing with the cells, Kim applied to the FDA for a single-patient investigational new drug (IND) application and also received approval from the hospital’s human subjects ethical review committee for implant the cells into the patient’s brain.
Bob Carter, MD, PhD, chief of Neurosurgery at Mass General and co-senior author, says, “This approach highlights the emerging power of using one’s own cells to try to reverse a condition – Parkinson’s disease – that has been very difficult to treat. I am very pleased by the extensive collaboration among multiple institutions, scientists, physicians, and surgeons that came together to make this a possibility.”
Results of treatment against Parkinson’s
In a series of two separate surgeries, in 2017 and 2018, at Weill Cornell and Mass General Medical Center, the patient underwent transplantation of the replacement dopaminergic neurons. Lead author Jeffrey Schweitzer, a Parkinson’s neurosurgeon and director of the Neurodegenerative Cellular Therapy Neurosurgical program at Mass General, designed a novel minimally invasive neurosurgical implantation procedure to deliver the cellss, working in collaboration with Carter at Mass General and Michael G. Kaplitt, MD, PhD, neurosurgeon at Weill Cornell.
Two years later, imaging tests indicate that the transplanted cells are alive and functioning properly as dopaminergic neurons in the brain. Because the implanted cells came from the patient, they did not trigger an immune response and were not rejected without the use of an immunosuppressive drug.
These results indicate that this personalized cell replacement strategy was a technical success, as the cells survived and functioned as expected. The patient has not developed any side effects, and there is no indication that the cells have caused unwanted growths or tumors.
In terms of how the patient feels, in the time since the intervention, the patient has enjoyed improvements in his activities of daily living and reports an improvement in his quality of life. Routine activities like tying shoes, walking at a faster pace, and speaking in a clearer voice have become possible again.
Some activities, such as swimming, skiing and biking, that he had given up years ago, have returned to his schedule. Although it is too soon to know if this therapeutic approach is feasible on a single-patient basis, the authors aim to further test the treatment in formal clinical trials.
“Current drugs and surgical treatments for Parkinson’s disease are aimed at treating the symptoms that result from the loss of dopaminergic neurons, but our strategy attempts to go further by directly replacing those neurons.”
Although there is optimism about the future of Parkinson’s disease treatments thanks to his work, Schweitzer cautions against declaring victory against the disease.
Also read:
Parkinson’s in Mexico: symptoms, risk factors and treatments
Mexican scientists design implant for the treatment of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s
Music therapy, effective in treating patients with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s
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