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Biotech / Medical : STEM -- StemCells, Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: scaram(o)uche who wrote (468)	5/19/2000 9:40:00 PM
From: scaram(o)uche	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 805

biomednet.com Is the world ready for brain transplants? Cell transplantation as a treatment for brain disorders is gaining a lot of interest, but the authors of this review suggest that not all trials for such disorders should go forward just yet. They discuss four major conditions for which clinical trials are already underway in various centers around the world: Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, epilepsy, and stroke. In the first two cases, the authors argue, there is a strong case for moving ahead with clinical trials. Animal models have been encouraging, and researchers have a clear understanding of why the procedure works and how it might be improved. In the case of epilepsy and stroke, they say that animal studies have shown some improvement following neural transplantation, but the mechanisms behind the improvement are unclear. Without such an understanding of the underlying science, clinical trials for these disorders are still premature. They acknowledge that decisions on whether to go ahead with clinical trials can be difficult, especially when no good treatments are currently available, but they emphasize the need for caution and warn against promising too much, too soon. Finally, the authors discuss the need to find better sources of cells for transplantation, because the most promising results have been had with cells obtained from human fetuses, which poses an obvious ethical problem.