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London/La Jolla (pte041/16.12.2004/15:20) - Scientists at London's Hammersmith Hospital http://www.hhnt.org are testing the use of adult stem cells, which could reverse cirrhosis of the liver. The team will use a patient's own bone marrow stem cells to treat the disease. As the New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com reports, Japanese researchers are also looking at using the treatment for liver fibrosis. At present, the only hope for many patients is a transplant, but due to the lack of organs available, other treatments are urgently needed.
The new treatment involves taking blood from the patient and separating it into its component parts. Stem cells are isolated from the white blood cells and injected into the hepatic artery in the liver. The red blood cells are returned to the body through the arm. Laboratory tests have proven that the treatment can improve a liver's function by repopulating it with stem cells. In chronic liver disease, cells are lost, which reduce the effectiveness of the liver and leads to ill health. Currently, patients are being recruited to the Hammersmith study so that the safety and efficiency of the treatment can be tested. Nagy Habib, who is leading the research, told BBC news that if the research is successful, it would be a very good option for patients needing a liver transplant.
The Japanese scientists damaged mouse livers by injecting them with a chemical that causes fibrosis. After four weeks, they took bone marrow cells from donor mice that had been treated
with a jellyfish gene to make their cells glow green. This enabled the researchers to examine the progress of the cells. They found that after a few weeks, all the cells had migrated to the liver. The Japanese researchers also found that by the eighth week, the proportion of fibrous tissue in the liver had shrunk significantly. The bone marrow cells seemed to change into liver cells and make large amounts of an enzyme, which is thought to play a role in dissolving fibrotic tissue. Mice whose livers had been damaged, but who were not given the treatment, did not show any reduction in fibrous tissue. However, Inder Verma and Yoshiyuki Kanazawa from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies http://www.salk.edu told New Scientist that a similar study they had carried out showed very little evidence of healed liver tissue after the infusion of bone marrow cells.
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