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