Stem cell injections for ALS safe - paper

(ANSA) - Rome, May 28 - Tests by Italian doctors in which human neural stem cells were injected into sufferers of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) show the procedure is safe, according to a paper published in the Stem Cells Translational Medicine journal. As a result the team is set to move to the second stage of trials on the procedure.
    The first stage of tests was conducted between 2012 and 2015 by Angelo Vescovi and Letizia Mazzini at the hospitals and clinics in Novara, Terni, Padua and San Giovanni Rotondo.
    The paper said that human neural stem cell (hNSC) lines were injected into gray matter tracts of the lumbar or cervical spinal cord of 18 patients. For up to 60 months after surgery, none of the patients manifested severe adverse effects or increased disease progression because of the treatment, it said. Eleven of the patients died, and two underwent tracheotomy "as a result of the natural history of the disease". "Our results show that transplantation of hNSC is a safe procedure that causes no major deleterious effects over the short or long term," the paper said.
    "Given the potential therapeutic effects of the hNSCs, our observations support undertaking future phase II clinical studies in which increased cell dosages are studied in larger cohorts of patients".