Stem Cells Repair TBI

Scientists in many parts of the world are looking towards stem cells to help repair brain damage from TBI. The limited capacity of self-repair for the brain following TBI requires cellular transplantation of stem cells to replace those lost in trauma. Cellular transplantation has begun to be evaluated in several models with animals with promising results.

Because this treatment has not yet been approved for humans in the United States, several doctors and companies have been set up in other countries, in which the patients with TBI can receive stem cells through intravenous transfusion. (The company Medra working out of the Soviet Union, Germany and the Dominican Republic has significant anecdotal success with patients, but they are still fighting a battle to be accepted by the medical community).

There appears to be some basis for this treatment in The Journal of Neurosurgery (Mahmood A. 2004), it was shown that marrow cell transplantation after traumatic injury showed increased cellular growth in rats. In another study in the Henry Ford Health Center in Detroit, intravenous bone marrow stromal self-therapy reduced “apoptosis” and promoted cell growth in rat brains. “Apoptosis” is a method by which brain cells die after trauma. These and other studies give great hope that bone marrow or fetal stem cell transfusion holds great promise.