Autologous stem cell therapy for cerebral palsy

Introduction: We describe treatment of Cerebral Palsy with adult stem cells derived from bone marrow and fat of the same patient. Adult stem cells are of two types, the mesenchymal and haemopoietic stem cells which have the potential to duplicate, indefinitely produce 50 types of growth factors that repair and regenerate tissues in an epigenetic manner. Every organ has its own stem cells, for example kidney stem cells, liver stem cells, etc. When specialized cells in an organ get damaged, the local stem cells come forward and get differentiated into specialized cells and the tissue damage is replenished. But when the stock of this reserve of local stem cell is over, the organ starts failing. In autologous stem cell therapy, we harvest stem cells from other healthy organs like fat and bone marrow which have abundant stem cells and put them into the diseased organ. Adult stem cells differentiate into neurons in vitro when added with nerve growth factor which is present in every nerve tissue. Our stem cell research was done by following all the guidelines set at national and international level. In India the incidence of cerebral palsy is around 5/1000 live births. In cerebral Palsy the upper motor neuron is weak, hence the lower motor neuron becomes hyper active leading to spasticity. The treatment involves mainly physiotherapy and prognosis is poor. Physiotherapy is a palliation and does not repair damage in the brain. The conventional therapy has failed to give any satisfactory results in these children hence something new needs to be done.

Author(s): Sagar Jawale

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