
Cancer treatment for MS patients gives 'remarkable' results - k-mcgrady
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35065905
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cpncrunch
The results so far all seem to be open-label, so we can't be sure that the
treatment actually works at all. Liberation therapy had similar testimonials
about making people in wheelchairs walk again, but we now know it was useless
(or entirely placebo).

There seem to be a couple of placebo-controlled trials underway, so we should
know for sure whether this treatment is useful after we get the results from
those trials.

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singsing
I wonder how they got the stem cells from blood. From what I knew, these cells
are mostly available at birth, not much afterwards

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dogma1138
You have stem cells through out your entire life, you might be confusing
(adult) stem cells with embryonic stem cells.

Adult stem cells can turn into only a limited type of cells. Embryonic stem
cells can turn into any type of cells.

Your bone marrow contains adult stem cells mainly haematopoietic stem cells
which can turn into various other sells like erythrocytes (red blood cells)
and lymphocyte (white blood cells).

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MaysonL
Wonder if any other auto-immune diseases could be usefully treated by this…

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dogma1138
This (well similar) technique was also been reported to technically cure HIV.
Over the years there have been several incidents[e.g. 1] where people with HIV
also had cancer such as leukemia in which the treatment was the kill the bone
marrow and do a transplant.

Since for the procedure the bone marrow is wiped out as well as most of the
immune system the HIV virus could not replicate within the T-Cells.

If those cases maintained a strict anti-viral regiment they would so far be
pretty much HIV free (dormant vira as well as common HIV infection of the
digestive tract cells would still be an issue).

This is unlikely to be used as any form of an official procedure tho the risks
are simply too great without an actual proof that this even works in the long
term.

Wont surprise me tho if some people might evolve this to a limited treatment
especially if a bone marrow donor with natural HIV immunity can be located.

[1][http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/hiv-treatment/hiv-
cure/4813-a...](http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/hiv-treatment/hiv-
cure/4813-aids-2014-australian-bone-marrow-transplant-patients-show-no-
detectable-hiv)

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pvaldes
[Just for the record: MS = multiple sclerosis in this context, not the more
common abbrev. for Microsoft]

