The Don Margolis Blog

If you ask your pulmonologist if stem cells can help your lung disease (COPD, emphysema, pulmonary fibrosis, etc. etc.) he/she will tell you “No---stem cells are snake oil.”   That is what we hear from almost every lung patient who comes to us trying to get out of the medical prison imposed by all lung conditions.  We know that stem cells have helped dozens treated in Latin America and Europe, but a disease almost no one has heard of?

Ten years ago, one teen in the state of Washington was told she only had months to live, but today, 16-year-old Mailia Goforth has defied the odds and continues to surprise doctors.

At the age of 3, Mailia was diagnosed with Eisenmenger's Syndrome. It's a heart defect that causes high blood pressure in her lungs and doesn't allow her to breathe on her own.

But recently, Mailia and her family took a trip across the country for a special procedure using stem cells. The hope, to fix her lungs and be one step closer to closing up a hole in her heart.

After more than a month of recovery, Mailia says the $50,000 operation worked, and she's getting stronger everyday.

She can now take out her breathing tube and even find enough energy to play outside. She tells me, after a few more operations she could be able to run, jump and do everything most 16-year-olds can do. 

"It feels amazing," she said. "I know I'll be able to do everything I've always wanted to do without having to get sick anymore... just to be free at last."
Free at last from the worry and stress of her disease is what the family is wishing for. To get there, she still needs her lungs to get stronger from the stem cell surgery. Once the lung pressure goes down she will be able to have heart surgery.
The video is HERE.
To follow Mailia's progress or donate to her cause go to http://mailiasmiracle.com/

Two-year-old Skyler Goodwin was born almost completely blind, unable to see anything except for changes in light.

Now Skyler can see 12 inches in front of her face, thanks to an operation overseas.

Four weeks ago, Skyler’s parents made the decision to send her to China for a special procedure that isn’t available in the United States.

After 36 days and a series of umbilical cord stem cell treatments, Skyler’s vision drastically improved.

“We're noticing she's tracking objects a little more, she'll grab objects and she's also getting around the house a lot better,” said Skyler’s mother, Stormy Goodwin.

Before the treatments Skyler was unable to walk, a skill that according to health experts, children usually acquire between nine and 18 months of age.

“We've never seen her improve so much in such a short period of time,” Goodwin said.

The Goodwin family said the stem cell treatments weren’t cheap.

After a year of fundraising, the family finally gathered close to $40,000 allowing them to proceed with the treatments.

“It was completely worth it and I really think if you have a child that has a disability and there’s nothing else out there -- keep searching because we completely found this by accident,” Goodwin said.

According to Skyler’s doctors, her vision will continue to improve over the next 12 months.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO:

Instead, Feaster turned to a fledgling Duke University Medical Center program that provides collection kits to mothers and their doctors. When Feaster's daughter, Kadee, arrived last month, the cord blood was collected, packaged and quickly shipped to a blood bank at no cost to Feaster and with minimal commitment of time and expertise from her doctor.

Duke doctor Joanne Kurtzberg wants to replicate Feaster's experience on a large scale.

Kurtzberg hopes that an easier donation process will trigger a surge in donations of blood cells so valuable they've been used to reverse and even cure otherwise fatal disorders. The current cord blood supply can't keep up with the demand for its use in treating leukemia, sickle cell disease and other blood disorders, and the nation's hospital infrastructure isn't set up to tap even a fraction of the potential donors.

It's cheaper this way

Kurtzberg, a pediatrics professor who has pioneered the use of umbilical cord stem cells to treat cancer and genetic disorders in children, believes the kits can spur donations. She's part of a one-year test program financed by the National Marrow Donor Program to develop, distribute and track their effectiveness. Duke is one of three participating blood bank sites, along with the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the Texas Cord Blood Bank in San Antonio.

Kurtzberg directs the Carolinas Cord Blood Bank, a Duke initiative that trains medical personnel and provides resources to collect the valuable blood at seven hospitals across the state, including Rex Healthcare , Durham Regional Hospital and UNC Hospitals. Those are North Carolina's only sites. Fewer than 200 hospitals nationwide do it.

It's costly. Duke pays $750,000 a year to equip each of those sites to collect the blood. But if you don't live near one of those sites, it's tough to donate.
That's where Kurtzberg's new kit comes in. It is a temperature-controlled box sent to expectant mothers at no cost. It includes all required consent forms and all the materials required for the blood collection, along with vials to store samples of the mother's blood, to be checked for infectious disease.

The kits cost $350 to $400 to make and are reusable.

By putting the kits into the hands of expectant mothers, Kurtzberg hopes to spur women to harvest their blood for science. The woman must persuade her doctor to take part; the doctor then takes a 10-minute online training course and agrees to collect the blood during the birth and ship it to a blood bank. The process adds about five minutes to the delivery, Kurtz berg said.

This gift can save lives

Feaster, the mother from Louisiana, learned about donation when her stepsister's two children received cord blood treatments at Duke for neurological disorders.

"Everyone tells you when you have a child that you should bank your cord blood, but it's not always financially possible," she said. "You don't realize how important it is until you know someone who goes through it. I really hope the cord blood from my daughter may help save someone's life. If I had another child I'd do it again."

This blood changes lives. It is rich in stem cells, prized because they can build healthy cells and tissue and repair or replace dead or damaged cells.

Kurtzberg has used cord blood to treat leukemia, metabolic disorders and sickle cell disease, and the parents of sick children flock to her Duke clinic for cord blood transplants.

Some cord blood isn't viable because of infection or other reasons. When collected properly at a medical center, the blood is viable once out of every two to 2 1/2 times, Kurtzberg said. That level of viability may drop with samples collected with the new kits; that's one factor Kurtzberg hopes to study. The program's goal is to collect 500 good samples.

"There's no ethical dilemma because it's otherwise discarded material," Kurtzberg said. "It is literally thrown in the trash, which frustrates a lot of people because it's good stuff..

Read more...

Medistem collaborator Dr. Jorge Paz Rodriquez was invited to give a talk at Del Mar College in Texas by arthritis patient Dusty Durrill. The patient described a profound recovery after treatment with stem cells from his own fat tissue. Mr Durrill underwent a procedure in which a small amount of fat tissue was extracted by liposuction, stem cells where purified, and subsequently injected intravenously and intra-articularly.

This procedure has been used successfully to treat thousands of animals suffering from arthritis in the United States (www.vet-stem.com). Adult stem cells are currently being used in the United States in orthopedics. Recently Dr. Paz published a paper describing scientific mechanisms of this treatment in collaboration with scientists from the University of California San Diego, University of Western Ontario, and Medistem Inc (Ichim et al. Autologous stromal vascular fraction cells: A tool for facilitating tolerance in rheumatic disease. Cell Immunol. 2010 Apr 8).

"I had treatment for my arthritis, I was not wheelchair bound but I was getting there... after stem cell treatment my arthritis symptoms disappeared," stated Mr. Durrill.

More than 200 people attended the lecture including the general public, patients and medical doctors. The lecture was focused on US and European clinical trials supporting the use of adult stem cells in conditions ranging from multiple sclerosis, to heart failure, to diabetes. A video of part of the lecture is available at http://www.kiiitv.com/younews/97165699.html.

Dr. Paz commented, "Mr. Durrill suffered from arthritis for more than ten years with severe pain in both knees and hips. He had difficulty standing and limited mobility. After stem cell therapy he started showing significant reduction in pain. Now about a month after therapy he is pain free and can move around easily."

Drs. Robert Harman, CEO of Vet-Stem and Thomas Ichim, CEO of Medistem, recently released a video discussing their publication on fat stem cell therapy for arthritis. The video is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QQrwtp-KQQ

The following was received from Mr. & Mrs.Rodrigues of Australia, regarding their daughter, Michaela (Princess) Sky Rodrigues, born sixteen weeks premature ten years ago, while her twin brother died.  Her first nine years had more motor neuron symptoms than anyone could count. Even with assistance she could could not stand on her feet nor raise her head from its permanent droop.  That story along with her stem cell improvement (Oct 2009) was in the RSCI January newsletter: http://www.repairstemcells.org/newsletters/NL010110.htm

Here is today’s Update

I HAVE TO GIVE YOU THE BEST NEWS EVER: I carried my princess to place her on the couch to change her diaper and massage her legs and her back.

WHILE I WAS PUTTING ON HER PYJAMA PANTS, TO MY AMAZEMENT, MY PRINCESS LIFTED HER HEAD UP ALONG WITH HER UPPER BODY FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME .  I LOOKED AND SAID “BABY , WHAT DID YOU JUST DO?”  MICHAELA SKY SAID “LOOK DAD, I AM LIFTING MY HEAD!”

Can you believe it, I am on such a high, i could not wait to tell Wendy when she returned back from work at 11.45pm.

Don we are so overjoyed. Now princess loves when we hold her by both her hands AND PULL HER UP.

This way we get her to lift her had and pull herself forward.

Wendy and I would like our PRECIOUS DAUGHTER to be a ROLE MODEL for the many families raising a child with *SECONDARY DYSTONIA*.

To have undergone STEM CELL INJECTIONS and WHO is thriving extremely great .

On the website of the greatest company in the WORLD WHOM HAS BLESSED US WITH THE MIRACLE OF STEM CELLS .

AND FOR GIVING OUR PRECIOUS DAUGHTER THE GIFT OF A NEW LEASE IN LIFE !

We will be forever grateful
 
I will keep you posted and up to date with ongoing miracles of my precious daughter princess * MICHAELA SKY *

Bye for now and blessings always

by David Prentice
June 18, 2010

Italian scientists report that they have restored sight to patients blinded by chemical burns using the patient’s own adult stem cells. The team treated 112 patients blinded in one or both eyes; some of whom had been blind for years. Adult stem cells were taken from the edge of a patient’s eye and cultured on fibrin, then the cell layers transplanted onto the damaged eyes. The adult stem cells produced healthy corneas and functioning eyes. Some patients regained sight within two months, while for others with deeper injuries the process took a year before vision was restored. Patients were followed up to ten years after the transplant. After a single transplant, 69% of patients regained vision; in some cases a second transplant occurred, with a total success in 77% of patients and partial vision restoration in 13% of patients. The long-term restoration was an especially encouraging success of the study.

Lead researcher Dr. Graziella Pellegrini, of the University of Modena, said:
“The patients, they are happy, even the partial successes. We have a couple of patients who were blind in both eyes. Can you imagine for these patients the change in their quality of life?”

According to the scientists, the key to success was insuring a high enough concentration of adult stem cells in the graft, so that the stem cells could continue to generate new tissue.

A center in Yerevan that opened recently as part of a larger donor registry to harvest Repair Stem Cells for transplants has registered its first success this week as its collection has proved life-saving for a patient in Europe.

The stem cells of Frederic Safarian, an Iranian-Armenian, matched with those of a non-Armenian woman living in Belgium and suffering from a grave blood-related illness. The transplant was successfully performed on Thursday night in Belgium.

The Stem Cell Harvesting Center in Yerevan is the only such establishment that is available in the territory of the former Soviet Union.

It is part of the Armenian Bone Marrow Donor Registry (ABMDR), which was established in 1999 for recruiting and providing matched unrelated donors for bone marrow or stem cell transplantation to all Armenian and non-Armenian patients who are suffering from leukemia and other blood related illnesses.



About 16,000 donors have been registered with ABMDR so far. A total of 821 matches have been found for 1,276 applications from patients during these years. This week has marked the tenth successful transplant assisted by the charitable organization, but the first stem-cell successfully matched. 

Doctor Mihran Nazaretyan, who works as part of this project, says that such successes not only save human lives, but may also hold out broad prospects for the future of Armenian medicine.

“We want not only to provide donors, but also create a transplant center in Armenia, which, naturally, will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, but we consider that 70 percent of work to achieve this goal has already been done,” Nazaretyan told ArmeniaNow.

Fabulous Strike, a five-time graded stakes winner and one of the top sprinters in the country over the past three seasons, recently underwent stem cell treatment at New Bolton Center in Kennett Square, Pa., in an effort to get him back to the racetrack later this summer.

Trainer Todd Beattie said Walter Downney's homebred 7-year-old gelded son of Smart Strike   had the stem cell treatment about five weeks ago after an ultrasound determined he had a ligament strain in his pastern.

Stem cell therapy is a breakthrough procedure in which bone marrow is used to help regenerate tissue. The relatively new technique has been used with success by a handful of equine veterinarians, including Dr. Doug Herthel, who helped pioneer the treatments at Alamo Pintado Equine Center in California. Stem cell therapy has been used successfully to help a number of horses recover from many types of joint, tendon, and ligament injuries.

It is the first time Beattie, who is based at Penn National Race Course in western Pa., has used stem cell treatment for one of his horses. Dr. Michael Ross performed the one-time treatment on Fabulous Strike.

“It wasn’t like he was limping or anything, but he just wasn’t right,” Beattie said of Fabulous Strike, who last raced in the Vosburgh Stakes (gr. I) in October, 2009 at Belmont Park when finishing second. “So we decided to do an ultrasound. There was no tear or anything but there was some edema. We decided to go the stem-cell route.

"I have so much confidence in Dr. Ross. Some of my family, who has been in the business many years, have had good success with it. It’s a really interesting technique. (Fabulous Strike) seems to be doing very well so far.”
Beattie said Fabulous Strike will return to the New Bolton Center for further observation in a couple of weeks and if he gets a clean bill of health, will return to training in July. Beattie is shooting for late fall to get Fabulous Strike back to the races.

“He’s never had a soundness issue his whole career,” said Beattie. “We're hopeful he will recover from this and everything will be good to start back.”

Out of the Lost Code mare Fabulous Find, Fabulous Strike has won 14 of 24 starts for earnings of more than $1.4 million.

IF YOU WANT STEM CELLS FOR LIGAMENT STRAIN IN THE USA, TRY    http://www.regenexx.com/

 In the fall of 2009, a nine year old cerebral palsy child, unable to walk , or hold herself up while sitting or even stand flat-footed on the floor was taken to China by her Australian parents for stem cells.  The child was the survivor of twins born sixteen weeks prematurely!   The results after only three months were astounding, and RSCI featured her in its 2010 kickoff Newsletter:  http://www.repairstemcells.org/newsletters/NL010110.htm
 
Now we bring you the USA version, a five year old treated with stem cells at Duke after surviving a cord-strangling birth which cost him a huge loss in brain function.  Enjoy!
 
CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Five-year-old Dylan Cain battled with a crippling neurological disorder since birth. But now, thanks to a cutting edge stem-cell procedure, along with hyerbaric-oxygen treatments, parents say he is winning the battle of his life.

Dylan Cain was part of a new study at Duke University that used his mother's cord blood-cells to regenerate damaged cells in his brain. Now his mother says she has discovered another treatment that has truly brought Dylan to life.

From the moment Dylan Cain entered into the world, his parents had to fight for him.

She took him with forceps which bruised his eyes and his face," recalls Dylan's mom, Jinger Cain. "...Pulled him out and broke his collar bone, and the cord was around his neck. He wasn't breathing when he was born. He was blue."

Baby Dylan's complication rendered him unable to breathe. Doctors finally were able to resuscitate Dylan after several minutes.

"He peed and breathed at the same time," recalls Mark Cain, Dylan's dad.  "He started crying and it was the happiest moment of my life."

A few hours which felt like eons to Dylan's mom. Mother and baby were finally united.

"We had no idea really the depth of  the damage that little episode caused for Dylan," recalls Jinger.

As the months passed, Jinger and her husband Mark could tell something was wrong. Dylan wasn't reaching the typical milestones like other infants.

"He wasn't doing anything," Mark remembers. "He wasn't looking at any object.  He wasn't making any eye contact."

Then came the first batch of bad news: doctors declared Dylan legally blind at four months old. A little over a year later, he was diagnosed with a severe case of cerebral palsy. The disease constricted Dylan's movement, his eyesight, his ability to learn, as well as his freedom of expression.

The family fought through it, though they and his teachers admit things weren't significantly better as dylan approached his fourth birthday.

"He was screaming, he was throwing things," says Jeannie Hatchett. "He was hitting his head.  He was banging his head on the floor."

Then, finally, some good news: Jinger recieved a letter that would dramatically change all of their lives.

"And I cried as I read it," remembers Jinger. "Oh my gosh, Mark! Biocord is doing this study with Duke University. I couldn't even sleep that night. I knew Dylan needed to be in that study," she continued.

Dylan would be one of just 50 children in the country to have his cord blood stem cells injected into his body. Researchers at Duke found that those cells, once injected into the body, could circulate and regenerate damaged cells in patients with brain damage or neurological disorders.

"The next day after his infusion he was bouncing off the walls," tells Mark. "It's like we gave him five candy bars or something. He was just really everywhere. He was making a lot of noises and sitting there laughing at nothing."

His parents say, after his procedure, his vocabularly exploded. The right side of his body that was once rigid is now moving.
Blown away by the results, the family searched far and wide for another procedure that would help keep the momentum going. They found what they were looking for in Bend with a procedure called hyperbarics.

"You can improve the oxygen concentration delivery to various parts of the body," explains Doctor Robert Pinnick. "All of the parts of the body."

At first, doctor Pinnick's staff was a bit skeptical that the chambers would help. But it didn't take long before they were seeing the results.

"There are no members of our team who have any question about whether or not that was beneficial or not for him now," Pinnick believes.

Just a few days after his first treatments in the chamber, Dylan was sleeping better and even his vision improved.

Those behaviors that were so severe and so intimidating to a lot of people are almost gone," Hatchett explains. "You can almost carry on a conversation with him."

A long journey in Dylan's five short years, but a journey with a much brighter future.

"If it's based upon our commitment and our dedication to Dylan," says Jinger, "we'll see anything through to help Dylan have a normal life.

Currently, the hyperbaric treatments aren't covered by insurance. Dylan's mother says her next fight is getting hyperbaric treatments covered by insurance so it's easier for other children who have cerebral palsy to use the treatment.