Houston doctors have launched the nation’s first experimental trial treating stroke with a patient’s own stem cells, following similar pioneering work in the Texas Medical Center with heart patients and brain-damaged children.
A University of Texas Medical School at Houston team last week injected stem cells taken from bone marrow of the trial’s first patient, who arrived at Memorial Hermann Hospital’s emergency department too late to receive tissue plasminogen activator, the clot-busting drug proven to treat stroke if given promptly.
“We’re just at the beginning, but this could an exciting new area of therapeutic intervention for stroke,” said Dr. Sean Savitz, a neurology professor and the study’s lead investigator. “It could be the next frontier.”
Although the trial is open only to those patients who don’t receive the clot-busting drug, Savitz said it could eventually also be used with the one-third of patients who get the drug but don’t improve.
Only about 3 percent of stroke patients get the drug.
Stroke is the nation’s third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.
It occurs when blood flow to the brain is interrupted or severely reduced, depriving brain tissue of oxygen and nutrients.
A tissue plasminogen activator is the only treatment for strokes....
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