The Therapeutic Promise of Nonembryonic Stem Cells—Where's the Beef?

The Therapeutic Promise of Nonembryonic Stem Cells—Where's the Beef?

Abstract

JOURNAL OF HEMATOTHERAPY & STEM CELL RESEARCH 12:465–466 (2003) © Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Editorial The Therapeutic Promise of Nonembryonic Stem Cells— Where’s the Beef? I of JHSCR, we present an intriguing article, featured on our cover, which strongly indicates that chemically induced aplastic anemia may be curable with random lymphocyte infusions (see Chen et al., pp 505–514). In this study, 14 patients who failed to respond to immunosuppressive therapy after exposure to benzene were given either autologous or allogeneic lymphocytes—expanded in vitro in the presence of fetal bovine serum, GM-CSF, and calcium ionophore—once a week for 6 weeks or longer. All of these patients recovered, and their hematopoietic profiles returned to normal levels. Those initially administered allogeneic lymphocytes due to insufficient circulating lymphocytes were switched to autologous lymphocytes when their peripheral counts began to rise. While the study from the 12th Municipal Hospital, the Liu Qiao Hospital, and the Yangfan Biotechnology Corporation in China was not randomly controlled, and while there is no way to assess how the patients would have fared without therapy, in the corresponding author’s experience, most, if not all, of the exposed patients would have died (D. Yang, personal communication, 2003). Literature references