4 ms·

Cancer treatment for MS patients gives 'remarkable' results

11 points by k-mcgrady 11y ago

MaysonL 11y ago
Wonder if any other auto-immune diseases could be usefully treated by this…
- scorpioxy 11y ago
  I was wondering the same thing myself. Also, isn't re-building the immune system dangerous in the sense that it increases the patient's risks to certain types of blood cancers?
- dogma1138 11y ago
  This (well similar) technique was also been reported to technically cure HIV. Over the years there have been several incidents[e.g. 1] where people with HIV also had cancer such as leukemia in which the treatment was the kill the bone marrow and do a transplant. Since for the procedure the bone marrow is wiped out as well as most of the immune system the HIV virus could not replicate within the T-Cells. If those cases maintained a strict anti-viral regiment they would so far be pretty much HIV free (dormant vira as well as common HIV infection of the digestive tract cells would still be an issue). This is unlikely to be used as any form of an official procedure tho the risks are simply too great without an actual proof that this even works in the long term. Wont surprise me tho if some people might evolve this to a limited treatment especially if a bone marrow donor with natural HIV immunity can be located. [1]http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/hiv-treatment/hiv-cure/4813-aids-2014-australian-bone-marrow-transplant-patients-show-no-detectable-hiv http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/hiv-treatment/hiv-cure/4813-a...
singsing 11y ago
I wonder how they got the stem cells from blood. From what I knew, these cells are mostly available at birth, not much afterwards
- DigitalJack 11y ago
  Stem cells are readily available from adult fat tissue.
- bigalo93 11y ago
  The stem cells are mobilized from the patient's marrow using a mobilizing agent such as cyclophosphamide, which allows the cells to be collected from the patient's blood. The adult bone marrow has stem cells at various stages of maturation that are involved with producing the cells of the blood.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  You have stem cells through out your entire life, you might be confusing (adult) stem cells with embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells can turn into only a limited type of cells. Embryonic stem cells can turn into any type of cells. Your bone marrow contains adult stem cells mainly haematopoietic stem cells which can turn into various other sells like erythrocytes (red blood cells) and lymphocyte (white blood cells).
cpncrunch 11y ago
The results so far all seem to be open-label, so we can't be sure that the treatment actually works at all. Liberation therapy had similar testimonials about making people in wheelchairs walk again, but we now know it was useless (or entirely placebo). There seem to be a couple of placebo-controlled trials underway, so we should know for sure whether this treatment is useful after we get the results from those trials.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
pvaldes 11y ago
[Just for the record: MS = multiple sclerosis in this context, not the more common abbrev. for Microsoft]

11 points by k-mcgrady 11y ago

MaysonL 11y ago

Wonder if any other auto-immune diseases could be usefully treated by this…

scorpioxy 11y ago
I was wondering the same thing myself. Also, isn't re-building the immune system dangerous in the sense that it increases the patient's risks to certain types of blood cancers?
dogma1138 11y ago
This (well similar) technique was also been reported to technically cure HIV. Over the years there have been several incidents[e.g. 1] where people with HIV also had cancer such as leukemia in which the treatment was the kill the bone marrow and do a transplant. Since for the procedure the bone marrow is wiped out as well as most of the immune system the HIV virus could not replicate within the T-Cells. If those cases maintained a strict anti-viral regiment they would so far be pretty much HIV free (dormant vira as well as common HIV infection of the digestive tract cells would still be an issue). This is unlikely to be used as any form of an official procedure tho the risks are simply too great without an actual proof that this even works in the long term. Wont surprise me tho if some people might evolve this to a limited treatment especially if a bone marrow donor with natural HIV immunity can be located. [1]http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/hiv-treatment/hiv-cure/4813-aids-2014-australian-bone-marrow-transplant-patients-show-no-detectable-hiv http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/hiv-treatment/hiv-cure/4813-a...

singsing 11y ago

I wonder how they got the stem cells from blood. From what I knew, these cells are mostly available at birth, not much afterwards

DigitalJack 11y ago
Stem cells are readily available from adult fat tissue.
bigalo93 11y ago
The stem cells are mobilized from the patient's marrow using a mobilizing agent such as cyclophosphamide, which allows the cells to be collected from the patient's blood. The adult bone marrow has stem cells at various stages of maturation that are involved with producing the cells of the blood.
dogma1138 11y ago
You have stem cells through out your entire life, you might be confusing (adult) stem cells with embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells can turn into only a limited type of cells. Embryonic stem cells can turn into any type of cells. Your bone marrow contains adult stem cells mainly haematopoietic stem cells which can turn into various other sells like erythrocytes (red blood cells) and lymphocyte (white blood cells).

cpncrunch 11y ago

The results so far all seem to be open-label, so we can't be sure that the treatment actually works at all. Liberation therapy had similar testimonials about making people in wheelchairs walk again, but we now know it was useless (or entirely placebo). There seem to be a couple of placebo-controlled trials underway, so we should know for sure whether this treatment is useful after we get the results from those trials.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

pvaldes 11y ago

[Just for the record: MS = multiple sclerosis in this context, not the more common abbrev. for Microsoft]