Stem Cell Treatment for Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis, also known as disseminated sclerosis or encephalomyelitis disseminata is the damage of the fatty myelin that covers the axons of the brain and spinal cord. And this condition leads to demyelination (loss of myelin). Multiple Sclerosis mostly happens to young adults, especially females. What's so bad about this disease? Multiple Sclerosis makes the nerve cells in the brain cannot communicate with the nerve cells in spinal cord. In other words, your body cannot listen to your brain's command anymore. Now you know that this is a very serious disease.
benefits of stem cell research
According to some researches on stem cells treatment for multiple sclerosis, the therapy was not only stop the myelin damaging process, but also reversed the process!

Several steps of stem cell treatment for multiple sclerosis

Basically, the Multiple Sclerosis happens because the body immune system considers the myelin cells as the body enemies and attacks them. Therefore, the best treatment according to the physicians is to deal with the body immune system's attack first.



The stem cell treatment for multiple sclerosis includes these several steps :
1. Some bone marrow stem cells are taken from the patients and frozen.
2. The patients are given chemotherapy to decrease the amount of body's immune cells
3. The bone marrow stem cells are put back into the patients' body
4. The stem cells produce new 'immature' immune cells which will not attack the myelin
5. When the body immune cells stop to attack the myelin, the recovery process will heal the body automatically.

The results of stem cells treatment for multiple sclerosis

A stem cell treatment for multiple sclerosis was done on 23 patients as the samples. All of them were the early-stage RRMS (Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis) patients. After the stem cells transplant was given to them, the patients' conditions were followed up after three years period, and the results were :
1. 100% of the patients did not show any worse condition compare to their former condition
2. 75% of the patients showed a bit progress on their body response to brain.

However, there are two conditions in approving the stem cells treatment for multiple sclerosis on a patient :
1. the patient is in the early stage of multiple sclerosis
2. the patient owns the bone marrow adult stem cells which are still good / healthy (not damaged by the former chemotheraphy treatment)

Unless the above conditions are available, the stem cells therapy is useless.
It is important to recognize the early stage of multiple sclerosis in order to have a beneficial stem cells therapy. But how to know that someone is having the early stage of multiple sclerosis? It is the 'foot drop' symptom that tells the person already has the multiple sclerosis. 'Foot drop' symptom is the condition in which you cannot lift or move your foot forward. Actually the foot is ok. It's the brain's command to 'lift or move' the foot doesn't arrive to the foot's motorneurons. So the foot does not move or lifted.