In what is currently a one-of-a-kind stem-cell success story, doctors in an Indian hospital claim to have restored the ability to walk to a man paralyzed after a fall from the 4th floor of a building.
Chennai, Feb. 25 (PTI): Doctors at a hospital here have claimed they successfully used stem cell therapy to enable a 25-year-old man, who injured his spinal cord in a fall in July last year, to walk normally again.
This is the first time that Indian doctors have resorted to stem cell therapy to cure spinal cord problems, said J S Rajkumar, chief surgeon of the corporate Lifeline multi-speciality hospital.
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Its doctors, in collaboration with the Indo-Japanese joint venture Nichi In Centre For Regenerative Medicine (NCRA), used autologous or “own body” stem therapy in December 2006 to treat Ali who started walking on his own, Rajkumar told reporters Saturday.
Note that this feat was accomplished with stem-cells from the man’s own body, so fetal stem-cells played no role in this. Also, it is worth pointing out that currently doctors don’t know if this is a repeatable event, or if the planets lined up just right to make this work. (via Wired’s Bodyhack blog)
[tags]Stem-cell success story, Walking ability restored to paralyzed man[/tags]
This sounds amazing! Hope India is not lagging behind any other country in stem cell success stories and my room mates from Chennai are all the more happy who already claim the city as the most happening city especially in health care!