[ExI] Gina "Nanogirl" update: yes it is Multiple Sclerosis

[Damien Broderick]

Damn. But... seen this?


"Bone Marrow Treatments Restore
Nerves, Expert Says"

by
Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

May 6, 2008; Bethesda, MD (Reuters) -- "An experiment that went wrong 
may provide a new way to treat Multiple Sclerosis," a Canadian 
researcher said on Tuesday. Patients who got bone marrow stem-cell 
transplants -- similar to those given to Leukemia patients -- have 
enjoyed a mysterious remission of their disease. And Dr. Mark 
Freedman of the University of Ottawa is not sure why. "Not a single 
patient, and it's almost seven years, has ever had a relapse," Freedman said.

         Multiple Sclerosis (MS) affects an estimated 1 million 
people globally. There is no cure. It can cause mild illness in some 
people while causing permanent disability in others. Symptoms may 
include numbness or weakness in one or more limbs, partial or 
complete loss of vision, and an unsteady gait. Freedman, who 
specializes in treating MS, wanted to study how the disease unfolds. 
He set up an experiment in which doctors destroyed the bone marrow 
and thus the immune systems of MS patients.

         Then stem cells known as hematopoeitic stem cells, 
blood-forming cells taken from the bone marrow, were transplanted 
back into the patients. "We weren't looking for improvement," 
Freedman told a stem cell seminar at the U.S. National Institutes of 
Health.  "The actual study was to reboot the immune system." Once MS 
is diagnosed, Freedman said, "you've already missed the boat. We 
figured we would reboot the immune system and watch the disease 
evolve. It failed."

Stem-Cell Repair

         They had thought that destroying the bone marrow would 
improve symptoms within a year. After all, MS is believed to be an 
autoimmune disease, in which immune system cells mistakenly attack 
the fatty myelin sheath that protects nerve strands. Patients lose 
the ability to move as the thin strands that connect one nerve cell 
to another wither.  Instead, improvements began two years after 
treatment. Freedman reported to the seminar about 17 of the patients 
he has given the transplants to. "We have yet to get the disease to 
restart," he said. Patients are not developing some of the 
characteristic brain lesions seen in MS. "But we are seeing this repair."

         MS patients often have hard-to-predict changes in their 
symptoms and disease course, so Freedman says his team must study the 
patients longer before they can say precisely what is going on. "We 
are trying to find out what is happening and what could possibly be 
the source of repair," Freedman said. But he has found some hints 
that may help doctors who treat MS by using drugs to suppress the 
immune system. "Those with a lot of inflammation going on were the 
most likely to benefit (from the treatment)," he said.

         "We need some degree of inflammation." While inflammation 
may be the process that destroys myelin, it could be that the body 
needs some inflammation to make repairs, Freedman said. Immune cells 
secrete compounds known as cytokines. While these are linked with 
inflammation, they may also direct cells, perhaps even the stem 
cells, to regenerate. The treatment itself is dangerous -- one 
patient died when the chemicals used to destroy his bone marrow also 
badly damaged his liver.

Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Eric Walsh