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| Colo. Boy Seeks Cure in China |
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| Optic Nerve Hypoplasia | |
| Vineri, 12 Septembrie 2008 00:43 | |
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There are no translations available. Source: New West  By Richard Martin If your child were blind, would you take him to China to undergo an expensive and unproven stem-cell therapy? That question was faced by John and Katrina Stewart of Colorado Springs, whose son, Brandon, suffers from optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH), a primary cause of blindness in children. Pursuing a controversial medical procedure that shows great promise but has not been validated by clinical trials, a Chinese company is using stem cells to treat hundreds of patients, many of them from the West, who have diseases previously thought incurable. The company, Beike Biotechnology Ltd., uses umbilical cord cells to treat a variety of ailments including heart disease and neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, muscular dystrophy, and ONH. Dozens of patients from the West have traveled to China to receive treatment. Unbound by the stiff requirements for double-blind clinical trials imposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration—and free of the political controversy that dogs stem-cell research in this country—Beike is pressing forward with its experimental therapy. “Of the over 3,000 patients that have been treated with our stem cells,” the Beike Web site claims, “about 70 to 80% of patients are satisfied with their treatment.” Beike’s technology was showcased at the first China Stem Cell Technology Forum in late July. The Mandarin-language conference was attended by “over 300 of the world’s most renowned stem cell researchers,” the company said, including several native Chinese scientists based in the U.S. Concerned over reports of patients traveling to China and Thailand and spending thousands on experimental therapies, the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) has developed a draft set of guidelines to “ensure that best practices are applied to the clinical translation of stem cell research from the laboratory to humans” and to “prevent exploitation of vulnerable patients.” Undeterred, the Stewarts raised nearly $50,000 to take Brandon to China. Leaving Denver on August 8 they traveled to Qingdao, in Shandong Province on China’s coast, where Brandon has undergone a series of stem-cell injections into his spine. Along with the umbilical cord cells it uses to treat patients, Beike is conducting research on a type of cell known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), which are derived from cell reprogramming technologies and can be frozen and stored for later use in medical treatment. First produced in 2006 from mouse cells and in 2007 from human cells, iPS cells are considered a noncontroversial potential alternative to embryonic stem cells. For the Stewarts, the month-long stay in China was an ordeal exacerbated by the departure of John and other family members on Sept. 1, leaving Katrina alone with her son in a very foreign land. “I feel completely different since everyone left on the 1st,” she wrote on her blog, Brandon’s Fight for Sight. “All Brandon talks about is leaving China & going home. In the middle of the night, I hear him talking in his sleep. Usually he just says ‘I wanna go home.’” On Monday night, the 15th, Katrina and Brandon are scheduled to arrive at DIA. The trip has been a success: while his vision will likely never be normal, Brandon’s sight has noticeably improved. “He learned the alphabet IN PRINT in 1 week,” reports Katrina in an email. “We’re so happy we were able to come to China - it has been worth it!”
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