Just before 10 a.m. Tuesday, Jake — a hobbling, 12-year-old yellow Labrador retriever — went into surgery at the Stanley Veterinary Clinic in Overland Park with crippling arthritis, no longer able to run without pain or even walk down stairs. He had already been on months of medications that seemed to turn the normally happy dog sad. And hip and joint replacements costing tens of thousands of dollars were not feasible, said owners Mike and Elizabeth LeBlanc of Leawood.Still, their 8-year-old daughter, Mia, had just one request at Christmas. “All I want is for Jake to feel better,” she wrote.So, on Tuesday morning, Jake became one of the first canines in the Kansas City area to undergo a somewhat new and controversial procedure in which stem cells were harvested from the fat of his own body and then injected into his joints. The expectation is that within a few weeks the cells will regenerate missing cartilage and turn his arthritic joints healthy again.“It’s amazing,” said veterinarian Les E. Pelfrey, who conducted the procedure. “A few weeks later, these guys are running up and down.”The stem-cell procedure, which has gained notice in recent years with anecdotal stories of success on YouTube … Continue reading →

ScienceDaily (Feb. 14, 2012) — Stem cell therapy moderately improves heart function after a heart attack, according to a systematic review published in The Cochrane Library. But the researchers behind the review say larger clinical trials are needed to establish whether this benefit translates to a longer life. In a heart attack, the blood supply to parts of the heart is cut off by a blocked artery, causing damage to the heart tissue. The cells in the affected area start to die. This is called necrosis and in the days and weeks that follow, the necrotic area may grow, eventually leaving a large part of the heart unable to contract and increasing the risk of further heart problems. Stem cell therapy uses cells from the patient's own bone marrow to try to repair and reduce this damage. Currently, the treatment is only available in facilities with links to scientific research. The authors of the review drew together all the available evidence to ask whether adult bone marrow stem cells can effectively prevent and repair the damage caused by a heart attack. In 2008, a Cochrane review of 13 stem cell therapy clinical trials addressed the same question, but the new … Continue reading →

14 February 2012 Last updated at 19:10 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News Bone marrow stem cell therapy offers "moderate improvement" to heart attack patients, according to a large UK review of clinical trials. The analysis by the Cochrane Collaboration looked at 33 trials involving more than 1,700 patients. It said longer-term studies were needed to see if the experimental therapy affected life expectancy. The review comes a day after doctors reported the first case of using heart cells to heal heart attack damage. If a patient survives a heart attack, dead heart muscle is replaced with scar tissue - leaving the patient weaker and possibly on a lifetime of medicine. Researchers are beginning to show that taking cells from a heart, growing millions of new heart cells in the laboratory and pumping those back into the heart may reduce scar tissue and lead to new heart muscle. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote Stem cell therapy may also reduce the number of patients who later die or suffer from heart failure, but currently there is a lack of statistically significant evidence based on the small number of patients treated so far” End Quote Dr … Continue reading →

14-02-2012 08:13 STEM CELLS The dance of life Recent developments in regenerative medicine and modern biology are going to have an enormous impact on our lives. Also the way itself we face the problem of sickness, aging and death changes as the hope (or the illusion?) grows that we always can fight and delay them. Stem cell research is in fact changing our knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms of life and feeding the idea that we can increasingly contrast the cruel natural selection rules which make us fall ill, grow old and die. A new frontier opens and unpredictable changes in our culture are taking place. People's hopes and fears grow at the same time. The general properties of the stem cells is presented, namely the ability to proliferate and, under certain conditions, to differentiate in other types of cells. In this way they can generate a new tissue replacing a damaged one, and also a new organ (like blood, thrachea, liver, heart, skin, cornea and very recently retina). A stamp is shown, which was emitted by the Japanese government to celebrate the discovery of a university team, which was able to regenerate a cornea and giving the opportunity to … Continue reading →

Stanley, Kan. — It’s a special Valentine’s Day gift for Jake the dog.  His family gave him a stem cell treatment that they hope will extend his life. Jake is an 11-year-old yellow lab.  He’s been part of the LeBlanc family since he was a puppy.  Jake’s owner, Elizabeth LeBlanc, calls him her “first baby.”  But then Mia and Aidan were born and at ages eight and five years old, they love to play with Jake. When the LeBlanc’s noticed Jake was having trouble getting around they wanted to help.  They tried medication, but say it didn’t work for very long.  Then Mia saw a segment about a stem cell treatment for dogs on t.v. and asked if they could get it for Jake.  The LeBlanc’s called their veterinarian and found out the Stanley Veterinary Clinic in Stanley, Kansas is the only place in the metro where they can do the entire procedure in house. Dr. Les Pelfrey, D.V.M. explained the procedure. “We’re going to collect about 20 grams of fat surgically and then we’re going to process it in our lab here in house then we’re going to reintroduce those stem cells after we activate them back into the … Continue reading →

14 February 2012 Last updated at 19:10 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News Bone marrow stem cell therapy offers "moderate improvement" to heart attack patients, according to a large UK review of clinical trials. The analysis by the Cochrane Collaboration looked at 33 trials involving more than 1,700 patients. It said longer-term studies were needed to see if the experimental therapy affected life expectancy. The review comes a day after doctors reported the first case of using heart cells to heal heart attack damage. If a patient survives a heart attack, dead heart muscle is replaced with scar tissue - leaving the patient weaker and possibly on a lifetime of medicine. Researchers are beginning to show that taking cells from a heart, growing millions of new heart cells in the laboratory and pumping those back into the heart may reduce scar tissue and lead to new heart muscle. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote Stem cell therapy may also reduce the number of patients who later die or suffer from heart failure, but currently there is a lack of statistically significant evidence based on the small number of patients treated so far” End Quote Dr … Continue reading →