Transplants of fetal brain tissue have reversed the progression of Huntington鈥檚 Chorea in people 鈥� the first effective treatment for the disease.
Huntington鈥檚 is an inherited disorder that normally develops between age 30 and 50. It causes weight loss, psychological problems and progressive difficulty with speech and movement. Neuronal degeneration in a part of the brain called the striatum is primarily to blame.
A team led by Marc Peschanski at INSERM in Paris, France grafted replacement human fetal striatal tissue into the brains of five Huntington鈥檚 sufferers. These patients were in the early stages of the disease. One year on, three of the patients are showing an improvement in their symptoms.
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However, two have deteriorated to the same extent as a group of 22 untreated patients. The team don鈥檛 yet know why the transplant did not work in these patients. Peschanski now hopes to carry out larger scale transplant trials.
Risky procedure
鈥淭his is a very interesting study but it鈥檚 risky, because it involves injections to the brain,鈥� says Christopher Ross, a Huntington鈥檚 expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
鈥淏ut the suggestion is that it could be helpful to HD patients. And it does raise the possibility that transplants using neural stem cells could be viable,鈥� he told New 杏吧原创.
However Ross warns that Huntington鈥檚 also causes degeneration in other parts of the brain. 鈥淭ransplanting just into the striatum is unlikely to have a permanent effect.鈥�
Other Huntington鈥檚 experts have hailed the research as promising. However, 鈥渇uture studies will have to clarify whether cell therapy can be developed into a clinically useful treatment,鈥� says Ole Lindvall of Lund University in Sweden.
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