Stem Cell Treatment For Crohn’s Disease
Crohn’s disease, together with ulcerative colitis, is included in what is called irritable bowel disease. It is a chronic genetic disease that occurs when the immune system loses tolerance to the patient’s own intestinal flora, leading to an abnormal inflammatory response that continues over time. It is a disease that usually affects young people between the ages of 18 and 40 years, and approximately 2000 new cases are diagnosed in Spain every year. Cellular therapy with stem cells is revolutionizing the focus of treatment of many serious diseases. Replacing the cells of damaged tissue with other new cells from the same patient is already a reality. This is the basis of cellular therapy and regenerative medicine, the latest great advance in biomedicine. In this line, Hospital Clínic , Barcelona is leading the world in the application of an innovative cellular therapy that uses stem cells to treat Crohn’s disease, a chronic genetic disease that affects 1% of the population in Spain and which has considerable impact on the quality of life of the patients. The procedure is based on an autologous bone-marrow transplant (when patients receive a transplant of their own stem cells) and now constitutes a treatment option to cure an intestinal disease that sometimes does not successfully respond to drugs and requires highly complex surgery that does not provide a cure. When the case is detected (that does not respond to drugs or surgery), the patient undergoes an autologous stem-cell transplant, which is a bone-morrow transplant in which the immune system is reset to prevent it from attacking the intestinal flora. The process lasts approximately 2 months and consists of 6 phases:
- Initial Chemotherapy (Cyclo-phosphamide + G-CSF). In this initial phase, leukopenia or reduction of the number of leukocytes (immune-system cells) in the blood is induced in the patient.
- Migration of Stem-Cells to the Blood. Following the previous immuno-suppression, the organism reacts by releasing stem cells from the bone marrow into the blood; these are the cells which will later be used for the transplant.
- Collection of Stem Cells by means of Apheresis. Apheresis is a technique that separates components of the blood. Here, the stem cells that previously migrated from the bone marrow are separated.
- Cryopreservation of Stem Cells. When the stem cells have been collected by apheresis, they are frozen and preserved until ready for transplant.
- Second Chemotherapy. In this phase, total leukopenia is induced; that is, the immune system is left devoid of leukocytes, ready to be reset with the stem-cell transplant.
- Autologous Stem-Cell Transplant. The patient receives the transplant by means of transfusion with his or her own stem cells. The immune system is reset, leading to remission or reduction of the abnormal inflammatory process of Crohn’s disease.
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