Chinese breakthrough treatment of spinal cord injury

One of the world's leading researchers on spinal cord injury said China could hold the key he sought to cure spinal cord injury.

>>>Treatment of spinal degeneration with laser magnets

Dr. Wise Young first used the word "cure" after a conversation with actor Christopher Reeve, who was famous for his role as Superman in the film of the same name, but was paralyzed after an accident in the year of a horse. 1995.

Reeve contacted him for help and the two became close friends. The actor died of heart failure in 2004 at the age of 52.

Another case, Sang Lan, a Chinese gymnastics athlete, took Young into the path he believed was about to find a cure, thanks to clinical trials of stem cell therapy. conducted in China.

"Everyone thought I was testing in China because I wanted to get rid of George W. Bush, but that's not the reason," Young told AFP in an interview to recall the former's decision. The US President in 2001 stopped using federal funds for stem cell research.

I started clinical trials in 2005 in Hong Kong . mainly because of my promise to a young woman named Sang Lan. Sang Lan broke her spine when she started a test at the Goodwill Olympics in New York in 1998. She met Young when she was treated and rehabilitated in the United States for 12 months."The girl's parents came to me and asked if there was a cure for her, and I said that we were working hard , " Young, who later became one of America's leading experts. about spinal cord injury, recall.

"When she returned to China after performing rehabilitation in New York, she cried and asked how this treatment could be brought from the United States to China."

"In those days, China was still relatively poor and backward, so she did not think that therapies could come from China. In 1999, I started talking to all the doctors. Spinal cord in China ".

He said the result of this is the establishment of China Spinal Cord Trauma Network, the world's largest clinical test network for spinal cord treatments.

Established in Hong Kong in 2005, then the center expanded to Europe, India and the United States."We are testing the implantation of cord blood cells into the spinal cord in combination with lithium treatments , " said Young, a professor of neurology at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

At about 20 centers in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan (China), stem cells are injected into the patient's spine to help regenerate the nerves, while lithium is used to promote push the development of nerve fibers.

Each component of the therapy process should be tested separately before they are combined in the third and final stages, scheduled to be carried out in the coming years if all goes well. .

The results so far are promising, although it is still too early to draw conclusions about recovery, Young said."What we can say right now is that the process seems pretty safe. No one has lost any functionality," he added.

"We don't expect patients who can then jump out of bed and run a marathon. Reconstruction is a slow process."

The tests also included walking exercises for those seriously injured at the Central Military Hospital in Kunming, southwestern China.

One of the downsides of the booming economy is an increase in car accidents and accidents at construction sites, resulting in a spike in spinal injuries.

According to Young, China's rate of chronic spinal cord injury has increased more than 10 times since 1995, and every year, there are 80,000 more people on this list.

The need to develop therapies has made some Chinese researchers unscrupulous to make a profit, although there is no evidence that the methods they offer are effective. However, Young thinks that this problem exists everywhere.

Chinese government spending on biomedical research is at least on par with the US, and the legal framework governing the country's clinical standards is unmatched, the doctor said.

"Everything turned 180 degrees from the time when Sang Lan asked how the treatment could be done in China. Now Americans themselves want to go to China," Young said.

"This is not what I told Sang Lan in 1998, but maybe the treatment of spinal cord injury will actually come from China."

"Before I met Reeve, I was very reluctant to use healing. It is a very scary word because when you use the word, you are committing yourself to a goal that most scientists feel. uncomfortable, " he said.

"We will not be able to make the body go back to the way it was before the injury, but what we do is to help the patient reach a level where others cannot say they have been injured, and I think it is achievable goals ".