By using stem cells, Canadian doctors reverse severe multiple sclerosis

Canadian scientists have recently been leading in making breakthrough discoveries about multiple sclerosis (MS), including new treatments. The new treatments reversed the MS of a Canadian woman who previously was in a 24-hour hospital care.

Vox reports that the severe multiple sclerosis of Jennifer Molson, a research assistant at Ottawa Hospital, was reversed with the use of stem-cell bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy. She underwent those procedures in 2002 as part of a small cohort study in Canada.

The high-risk, experimental therapy had only 24 patients, 70 percent of whose progression of MS were stopped or reversed. The research was published on Thursday in Lancet, the first study to describe an MS treatment that fully stops the ailment over the long term minus using MS drugs.

Molson was diagnosed with MS when she was 21, while working at day and studying at night. One morning, she woke up with pricking pain in her hands and after one week she could no longer move her left arm. After five years, she was under 24-hour care in Ottawa Hospital and had to be a cane, walker or wheelchair to move around.

She lost feeling from her chest down, but because of the treatment, in 2003, she was able to walk and dance at her wedding to Aaron who stood by her while still suffering from MS. She could now ski and drive. Her treatment, which could potentially benefit 20 million MS patients globally, would be the new standard of care for progressive MS, says Michael Rudnicki, director of the Regenerative Medicine Program and Sprott Centre for Stem Cell Research at the Ottawa Health Research Institute, although he was not involved with the study.

The immune system of MS patients, instead of protecting the body from foreign invaders, damage the myelin – a protective coating around the nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord. The attacks interrupt the communication between body and brain and lead to symptoms such as numbness, problem walking and blindness.

Molson’s 10-day short-course therapy was to stimulate hematopoietic stem cells production which regenerates the blood’s immune system.

However, Harry Atkins, hematologist at the hospital and lead researcher, says only about 5 percent of MS patients would be eligible for the treatment. These are patients with an aggressive form of MS that do not respond to any treatment.

Besides Molson, another MS patient of Atkins whose ailment was reversed is 36-year-old Tina Ceroni, a fitness trainer who experienced the severe symptoms of MS when she was in her late 20s. After the treatment, all symptoms have disappeared.

VIDEO: Can a new immune system MS and allow repair?