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Paraplegic backing for stem cell trials
MARYANNE TWENTYMAN Last updated 05:00 22/01/2011

CHRIS HILLOCK/Waikato Times BACKING RESEARCH: He may not fit the criteria but Hamilton paraplegic Frank Pennington is hopeful that new spinal cord treatment trials will one day benefit him.
Hamilton paraplegic Frank Pennington will never forget being told he would never walk again.

“It was about two hours after my accident and those words went searing into my soul,” he said.

That was 21 years ago last month, and though Mr Pennington doubts he will ever walk again, he is overjoyed that the Spinal Cord Society has been successful in winning approval for the country’s first clinical trial using adult stem cells to treat people with spinal injuries.

“Who knows, in a few years the trial could result in treatment I could be included in and that would be incredible.”

Mr Pennington is a committee member of the Spinal Cord Society but credits president Noela Vallis, of Matamata, with having the dogged determination to get the trials under way.

“I don’t know how she [Mrs Vallis] didn’t give up – she had so many knock backs but she kept going,” he said.

The Health Ministry multi-region ethics committee gave its okay this week and plans are already under way to find eligible candidates for the trial later this year. It will involve a dozen people confined to wheelchairs having stem cells from inside their nose injected into the site of their spinal injuries.

Otago Medical School haematologist and cell biologist Jim Faed, who is on the research team, said directing money to helping patients in their everyday lives was like pouring it into a “great bottomless pit”.

ACC already spent more than $100 million a year on spinal-cord injury support.

“New Zealand is doing the first efficacy trial of the nose-cell treatment in the world and it will have an international impact,” Dr Faed said.

But since the trial price tag is $1 million, New Zealand Spinal Trust chief executive Andrew Hall said he had “mixed feelings” about it.

“My concern is that diverting resources off to that [the trial] is taking it away from helping people manage their lives at the moment,” he said.

Although the trial is not expected to result in massive improvement for patients, many, like Mr Pennington, consider it a step toward reducing the massive personal and economic impact of spinal injuries.

“Some people may be wary of the trial but I think a lot of people will be keen to give the trial a go, I know I would,” Mr Pennington said.

The Flagstaff man is not eligible because the trial criteria call for patients injured within the past seven years, and with a T5/T6, or mid-spinal injury.

Mr Pennington, 66, broke his back in a car crash on the Desert Road in 1989. He was a back seat passenger.

“The lap belt gave on impact then held which caused whiplash breaking my back, with the buckle perforating my bowel in two places and my shoulder was also dislocated.”

His uncle, also travelling in the back seat, was killed in the crash. Mr Pennington and four other family members had been travelling to Paraparaumu for his mother’s 80th birthday.

After months of treatment and rehabilitation, Mr Pennington was left an “incomplete paraplegic” meaning his spinal cord was not completely severed.

“I have some movement in my legs so there are messages firing off from the brain – but I can’t walk,” he said.

At the time of his injury Mr Pennington had a sheep and beef farm at Whakamaru and converted the property to dairy after the accident. His son now manages the farm and Mr Pennington enjoys weekly visits. “I have a quad bike I can use to spray weeds but I get a lot of pain so it’s difficult.”

The pain is hard to medicate, with many drugs having little or no effect after years of use. “That’s why this trial is so important. Even if it reduces pain or gives people some quality of life back through movement – it has to be better than nothing.”

Source

PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 7, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — StemCells, Inc. (Nasdaq:STEM – News) announced today that is has received authorization from Swissmedic, the Swiss regulatory agency for therapeutic products, to initiate a Phase I/II clinical trial in Switzerland of the Company’s proprietary HuCNS-SC(R) product candidate (purified human neural stem cells) in chronic spinal cord injury. The trial is designed to assess both safety and preliminary efficacy in patients with varying degrees of paralysis who are three to 12 months post-injury, and will progressively enroll patients based upon the severity of injury. Enrollment is expected to begin in early 2011.

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