- Researchers at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine have shown that an innovative coronavirus treatment idea really works.
- Stem cell transfusions can save lives and accelerate the recovery of COVID-19 in patients with severe disease who develop life-threatening ARDS.
- Stem cells migrate to the lungs and can correct the immune and inflammatory response, reducing so-called cytokine storms. “It’s like smart pump technology in the lungs to restore the normal immune response and reverse life-threatening complications,” Dr. Camillo Ricordi said in a statement.
As terrible as 2020 has been, with COVID-19 largely responsible for all of last year’s tone, there’s one key thing that doesn’t get enough praise. This is the science that allowed health officials and doctors to develop protocols to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 and save more patients who end up developing life-threatening complications. A large number of discoveries allowed doctors to change the way patients were treated.
The introduction of blood thinners into COVID-19 therapy and drugs that can attenuate the inflammatory response has allowed more people to survive the battle with the terrible disease. New drugs such as monoclonal antibodies can prevent serious cases and vaccines have been shown to be very effective in clinical trials to prevent complications of COVID-19. But SARS-CoV-2 is so contagious that the death toll remains high. The greater the number of cases, the more deaths can be expected, although the actual mortality rate is quite low. That’s why the United States has experienced so many deaths in recent months, and more people will not survive COVID-19 in the coming months.
Vaccines are the kind of miraculous cure that can prevent death by teaching the immune system to prepare to deal with the virus from the moment it sets foot in the body. But vaccines cannot be used in people who are already infected with the pathogen. This is where the world will need better therapies. A team of doctors has just found innovative treatment that can save even more lives than is possible right now. Researchers at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine demonstrated a theory that was based on anecdotal evidence. Stem cell therapy can accelerate the recovery of COVID-19 and prevent death.
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Some doctors have tried stem cell transfusion in COVID-19 therapy in several countries, and doctors in the United States have shown great success. But they were not studies that would allow the country to create new treatment protocols. New drugs, such as vaccines, must go through randomized, double-blind studies that prove, without a doubt, that they are effective and safe.
This is what the UM team did with mesenchymal stem cell infusions derived from the umbilical cord. Doctors studied 24 COVID-19 patients hospitalized at UHealth Tower or UM / Jackson Memorial Hospital. Patients developed a severe acute respiratory disorder (SRAD) syndrome, which occurs in other diseases and can be fatal. Patients received two infusions a few days apart, either with a placebo or with stem cells.
“It was a double-blind study. Doctors and patients did not know what was infused, “said Dr. Camillo Ricordi in a statement. “Two infusions of 100 million stem cells were delivered within three days, for a total of 200 million cells in each subject in the treatment group.”
Remember, the lead author of the study published in Translational medicine of stem cells, is the director of the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) and the Cell Transplant Center at Miller University School of Medicine.
The researchers found that patient survival was 91% in the stem cell group compared to 42% in the placebo group. All patients under the age of 85 who received stem cells survived for one month.
Patients with stem cells recovered faster than those in the control group. More than half of the patients treated with stem cells went home within two weeks of the last treatment. More than 80% of the stem group recovered on day 30, compared with less than 37% of the placebo cohort.
“The umbilical cord contains progenitor stem cells, or mesenchymal stem cells, that can expand and provide therapeutic doses for more than 10,000 patients with a single umbilical cord,” Ricordi said. “It’s a unique resource of cells that are being investigated for possible use in cell therapy applications, whenever you need to modulate the immune response or the inflammatory response.”
The doctor said the university has been working with China on these therapies for more than ten years, studying stem cells to treat type 1 diabetes. Stem cell-based therapies could be used in other diseases that cause an exaggerated immune response, not just COVID-19.
“Our results confirm the powerful anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effect of UC-MSC (umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells). These cells have clearly inhibited the “cytokine storm,” a hallmark of severe COVID-19, “Dr. Giacomo Lanzoni, lead author of the paper, said in a statement.
Stem cells have antimicrobial activity and lead to tissue regeneration, as well as correcting the immune and inflammatory response.
According to Ricordi, the therapy “only requires an intravenous (IV) infusion, such as a blood transfusion.” “It’s like smart pump technology in the lungs to restore the normal immune response and reverse life-threatening complications.” Stem cells have naturally deployed to the lungs, which is the most compromised area in patients with COVID-19 who develop ARDS.
The university plans to study stem cell therapy in COVID-19 patients who have not developed complications but are at risk of being intubated. If successful, therapy can prevent the progression of COVID-19 to a severe state where complications arise.
Although Ricordi and his team demonstrated that this stem cell therapy is safe and effective for patients with COVID-19, it is unclear if and when it can be used on a larger scale. The United States still has a record number of hospitalizations and patients with complications will need weeks to recover. Other countries are also experiencing large increases in COVID-19.
Chris Smith began writing about gadgets as a hobby, and before he knew it, he was sharing his views on technology issues with readers around the world. Whenever he doesn’t write about gadgets, he fails to stay away from them, even though he tries desperately. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.