Third-party blood stem cell transplantation as a factor to impact on poor graft function

Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells from third party donors found effective, safe in treating PGF

2013-03-18

(Press-News.org) The study appears as an early e-publication for the journal Cell Transplantation, and is now freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/pre-prints/ct0832liu.

"Allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation can cure many hematologic diseases," said study co-author Dr. Qifa Liu of the Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China. "However, poor graft function is a complication that occurs in five to 27 percent of patients receiving allo-HSCT and is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality."

According to the researchers, graft function may be poor after allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation because of slow or incomplete reconstitution of blood counts or decreasing blood counts. PGF, which is poorly understood, is a potentially life-threating condition when it leads to graft vs. host disease (GVHD).

In this study, when 20 patients demonstrated risk factors for PGF, researchers infused them with MSCs derived from bone marrow from third-party donors. PGF had developed in five patients with acute GVHD and two patients had chronic GVHD.

"The patients receiving the MSCs achieved either complete responses or improved GVHD," said the researchers. "However, the PGF did not improve when immunosuppressive agents were given. This means that additional studies will be needed to determine whether PGF is associated with immunologic factors."

One unanswered question, said the researchers, was whether the immunosuppressive properties of MSCs are an important factor that could have a favorable impact on potential problems such as an increased risk of infection or tumor relapse following cell transplantation.

"Although six of 20 patients died from infections within the first 100 days of MSC transplantation, we could not safely conclude that MSCs increased the incidence of infections other than Epstein-Barr," they wrote.

In conclusion, the researchers noted that "clinical applications of human MSCs are evolving rapidly with goals of improving hematopoietic engraftment and preventing GVHD after allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation."

"This study highlights the potential impact of allogeneic mesenchymal stem cell transplants as an adjunctive therapy for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation to reduce the likelihood of the patient developing graft versus host disease after exhibiting risk factors for poor functioning of the grafted cells" said Dr. Paul R. Sanberg, distinguished professor at the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair, University of South Florida. ### Contact: Dr. Qifa Liu, Department of Hematology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China
Email: liuqifa628@163.com
Tel: +86-020-61641612
Fax: +86-020-87335858

Citation: Xiaodan Liu, Meiqing Wu, Yanwen Peng, Xiaoyong Chen, Jing Sun, Fen Huang, Zhiping Fan, Hongsheng Zhou, Xiuli Wu, Guopan Yu, Xian Zhang, Yonghua Li, Yang Xiao, Chaoyang Song, Andy Peng Xiang, Qifa Liu. Improvement in Poor Graft Function after Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation upon Administration of Mesenchymal Stem Cells from Third-Party Donors: A Pilot Prospective Study. Cell Transplant. Appeared or available online: January 2, 2013. The Coeditors-in-chief for CELL TRANSPLANTATION are at the Diabetes Research Institute, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Center for Neuropsychiatry, China Medical University Hospital, TaiChung, Taiwan. Contact, Camillo Ricordi, MD at ricordi@miami.edu or Shinn-Zong Lin, MD, PhD at shinnzong@yahoo.com.tw or David Eve, PhD at celltransplantation@gmail.com

News release by Florida Science Communications http://www.sciencescribe.net

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Study: Widespread 'test-and-treat' HIV policies could increase dangerous drug resistance

2013-03-18

One of the most widely advocated strategies for dealing with HIV/AIDS could double the number of multi-drug-resistant HIV cases in the population of men who have sex with men (MSM) in LA County over the next 10 years, cautions a new study. In the United States, LA County has the largest incident population of HIV positive individuals. The so-called "test and treat" policy — which calls for universal testing for HIV as well as treatment with antiretroviral drugs for even those at the earliest stages of the disease — is popular because it has been shown to decrease the ...

Soldiers and families can suffer negative effects from modern communication technologies

2013-03-18

As recently as the Vietnam and Korean wars, soldiers' families commonly had to wait months to receive word from family members on the front lines. Now, cell phones and the internet allow deployed soldiers and their families to communicate instantly. However, along with the benefits of keeping in touch, using new communication technologies can have negative consequences for both soldiers and their families, according to a study by University of Missouri researcher Brian Houston. This research could lead to guidelines for how active military personnel and their families can ...

Difficulty in recognizing faces in autism linked to performance in a group of neurons

2013-03-18

WASHINGTON — Neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) have discovered a brain anomaly that explains why some people diagnosed with autism cannot easily recognize faces — a deficit linked to the impairments in social interactions considered to be the hallmark of the disorder. They also say that the novel neuroimaging analysis technique they developed to arrive at this finding is likely to help link behavioral deficits to differences at the neural level in a range of neurological disorders. The final manuscript published March 15 in the online journal ...

Cross-cultural parenting: Reflections on autonomy and interdependence

2013-03-18

(Boston)--Boston Medical Center pediatricians Laura Johnson, MD, MPH, Jenny Radesky, MD, and Barry Zuckerman, MD, the Joel and Barbara Alpert Professor of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, have published a paper in the current issue of the journal Pediatrics that addresses how understanding the origins and goals of parenting behaviors can help pediatricians strengthen relationships with families, demonstrate cultural sensitivity, and more effectively offer guidance on the challenges of childrearing. According to the paper, parenting goals and behavior ...

Does Greek coffee hold the key to a longer life?

2013-03-18

The answer to longevity may be far simpler than we imagine; it may in fact be right under our noses in the form of a morning caffeine kick. The elderly inhabitants of Ikaria, the Greek island, boast the highest rates of longevity in the World, and many scientists turn to them when looking to discover the 'secrets of a longer life'. In a new study in Vascular Medicine, published by SAGE, researchers investigating cardiovascular health believe that a cup of boiled Greek coffee holds the clue to the elderly islanders' good health. Only 0.1% of Europeans live to be over ...

Study confirms difference in radical prostatectomy outcomes between surgeons

2013-03-18

Milan, 18 March 2013 - New evidence from Sweden confirms previous studies which suggest that functional outcomes after radical prostatectomy may vary between surgeons, especially in relation to continence. However, the group found no evidence of heterogeneity in potency-related outcomes. The results of this investigation, to be presented at the 28th Annual EAU Congress, aimed of to examine between surgeon variation with regards to oncological and patient-reported functional outcomes in one European centre. The study included 1280 men who underwent open radical prostatectomy ...

Highly effective communities of bacteria in the world's deepest oceanic trench

2013-03-18

An international research team announces the first scientific results from one of the most inaccessible places on Earth: the bottom of the Mariana Trench located nearly 11 kilometers below sea level in the western Pacific, which makes it the deepest site on Earth. Their analyses document that a highly active bacteria community exists in the sediment of the trench - even though the environment is under extreme pressure almost 1,100 times higher than at sea level. In fact, the trench sediments house almost 10 times more bacteria than in the sediments of the surrounding ...

White blood cells found to play key role in controlling red blood cell levels

2013-03-18

March 17, 2013 — (Bronx, NY) — Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have found that macrophages – white blood cells that play a key role in the immune response – also help to both produce and eliminate the body's red blood cells (RBCs). The findings could lead to novel therapies for diseases or conditions in which the red blood cell production is thrown out of balance. The study, conducted in mice, is published today in the online edition of the journal Nature Medicine. "Our findings ...

UEA research reveals catastrophic loss of Cambodia's tropical flooded grasslands

2013-03-18

Around half of Cambodia's tropical flooded grasslands have been lost in just 10 years according to new research from the University of East Anglia. The seasonally flooded grasslands around the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia's largest freshwater lake, are of great importance for biodiversity and a refuge for 11 globally-threatened bird species. They are also a vital fishing, grazing, and traditional rice farming resource for around 1.1 million people. Research published today in the journal Conservation Biology quantifies for the first time the area's catastrophic loss ...

Ocean plankton sponge up nearly twice the carbon currently assumed

2013-03-18

Irvine, Calif. –Models of carbon dioxide in the world's oceans need to be revised, according to new work by UC Irvine and other scientists published online Sunday in Nature Geoscience. Trillions of plankton near the surface of warm waters are far more carbon-rich than has long been thought, they found. Global marine temperature fluctuations could mean that tiny Prochlorococcus and other microbes digest double the carbon previously calculated. Carbon dioxide is the leading driver of disruptive climate change. In making their findings, the researchers have upended a decades-old ...

Third-party blood stem cell transplantation as a factor to impact on poor graft function

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: