Stem Cell Surgical Procedures

Stem cells have the ability to turn into any kind of cell or tissues in the body. If you have a damaged nerve cell in the brain or a damaged heart muscle, it can be repaired with the help from stem cell in the bone marrow. Stem cells can also be used to treat blood disorders like anaemia through transfer of stem cells in the affected area. Stem cell therapy has the power to cure many diseases in the human body. Embryonic stem cell therapies can be used to replace a damaged part of the body if you have an accident.

Stem cell therapy essentially involves grafting/transfer of new tissue in the place of damaged tissue. If you have to implant new stem cells in any part of the body, you will have to undergo surgery. Now, let us see what kind of surgical procedures are involved in stem cell transplants.

Developing replacement neurons:

It was once believed that neurons in the adult human brain and spinal cord couldn’t regenerate. Rebuilding the tissue through surgery was considered impossible, therefore, researchers concentrated on limiting further damage to the affected organs through therapy. Later on, it was found that new neurons grow in the adult brain too. This discovery, that the adult central nervous system could regenerate raised hopes that damages due to Parkinson’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis could be repaired through stem cell surgery. Scientists have been trying to develop differentiated cells in laboratory dish suitable for implantation along with undifferentiated neural cells. The cells are treated in culture and moved forward to the differentiated neuronal cell before implanting or implanting them and later depending on body signals to mature in the right brain cell.

Other type of surgery procedure depends on finding trophic factors like growth hormones and other molecules that help the cell endure and grow.

Fetal tissue transplants:

Dopamine cells are grown in the laboratory and used for transplantation to revert the effects of Parkinson’s disease. These dopamine cells can be implanted in the brain to replace the lost dopamine releasing neurons. This is not an easy thing to do. Fully evolved dopamine neurons do not survive the process of transplantation. Recovery does not only depend on the release of Dopamine and survival of the cell. Transported cells need to make suitable connections with the target neurons found in the striatum after the surgery.

The first cell transplantation surgery attempt in the 1980s included transferring dopamine-producing cells in the adrenal glands, which are on top of the kidneys in abdomen. A lot of improvement was seen in patients of the Parkinson disease after transferring chromaffin cells, which produce dopamine from patients’ adrenal glands to the brain.

Dopamine- Neuron Transplantation:

Initially, they were done ‘Open label’ that is researchers and the patients knew who received the transplanted tissue. However, the appropriate test for a new kind of therapy is a double blind and placebo controlled trial where neither the patient nor the researcher knows who received the treatment.

Other stem cell surgeries are using brain’s own cells for repair, stem cells used in spinal cord injuries and raising neurons for patients afflicted with Parkinson’s disease.

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