What Is HSCT??

What is HSCT??

Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant. Hemato=blood. Poietic= the formation of cells.

Hematopoietic=formation of the cellular elements of the blood, including the red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets,which in adult mammals takes place chiefly in the bonemarrow;formation of the cellular elements of the blood.

HSCT is being used in the prevention and treatment of autoimmune diseases with favorable clinical responses in many patients. It uses high dose chemotherapy, which almost knocks out the immune system, followed by hematopoietic stem cell rescue. It resets or reboots the immunological dysfunction through the control of autoreactive lymphocytes and lymphocytic clones, followed by restoration of immunological tolerance after immune reconstitution.

HSCT stops the progression of MS in 70-80% of cases. It is not a new procedure.  The 1st HSCT specifically for autoimmune disease (uveitis) was done by Professor Shimon Slavin in Israel in 1985. The patient remains "cured" today. It has been used to treat cancer since the 1960's. The 1st HSCT for MS was done in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1995. However, there were many observational cases that were transplanted for cancer, who had their MS halted unexpectedly.

Dr. Richard Burt of Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, started HSCT in 1996. While he was a Fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, he noticed that patients treated for leukemia needed to be revaccinated . The cells affected prior to transplant were losing the memory of the original childhood vaccinations, like MMR.

Dr. Burt thought maybe if he could get bad, diseased cells to lose their memory, he could reprogram them with good memories and help autoimmune disease. This reprogramming would be done using adult stem cells.

He 1st tried it on animals in the lab. It worked!  The FDA approved an adult stem cell therapy trial for MS. It worked again.  14 years later, Dr. Burt and his team of researchers are using HSCT in trials to help stop autoimmune diseases such as MS, Scleroderma, CIDP, and many others. It is still not FDA approved, despite the good results.

HSCT for MS is being done all over the world. Places like Germany, Russia, Singapore, Israel, Italy, Greece, Canada, and Mexico.

Autologous HSCT (using your own stem cells), have been done since the mid 1990's. Several thousand have been done around the world. In retrospective analysis, a progression free survival of more than 5 years has been observed for the majority of patients, with post-transplant neurological outcomes being more favorable with relapsing-remitting type. 
Those showing an inflammatory pattern in MRI have a more favorable outcome. Also, aggressive forms show with prominent inflammatory activity have better outcomes.

Since 1993, over 400 HSCT's have been done for different diseases such as acute leukemia, chronic leukemia, aplastc leukemia, myeloma, lymphomas, myelodysplasias, and autoimmune diseases, including MS.

Mexico treats Relapsing Remitting(RRMS), Secondary Progressive (SPMS), Primary Progressive MS (PPMS), and Progressive Relapsing MS (PRMS).