Tiantan Puhua Hospital and SinoCells Biotechnologies Company Limited, a company associated with the Peking University Stem Cell Center are now cooperating to provide stem cell treatments for nervous system diseases. Tiantan Puhua Hospital is the VIP joint venture between the American Pacific Medical Group, Tiantan Hospital and the Chongwen Health Bureau. Tiantan Puhua Hospital is generally thought of as the VIP section for Tiantan Hospital, China’s leading neurosurgery hospital. Established in 1956, Tiantan Hospital is one of the world’s top three neurosurgical research institutes; Asia’s largest centre for neurosurgical therapy, research and education today; and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) neurosurgical training centre for China.

China Stem Cell News recently visited with the Tiantan Puhua Hospital management and found that they have treated ten patients so far, mostly for stroke, with their own medicine which stimulates the production of neural stem cells in the hippothalmus. They would not give exact details about the medicine but they did let us speak with three patients.

The first patient was Li Jing Wei, the chairman of Jian Li Bao, who is 64 and had a stroke just over four years ago and is from Guangzhou. They gave him treatment and intense rehabilitation for two months. When he came to the hospital, he could not stand up or walk by himself and he could not move his right hand or leg. He spoke very slowly After the first month of treatment, he was able to move his hand but not open it. After the second month of treatment, he could open his hand he could walk twenty steps without help.  His speech has improved slightly. Li Jing Wei has gone home for Chinese New Years but will be back to continue the treatment after the holiday.

The second patient was Jian Hui Zhi, age 45, from Inner Mongolia. He had a brain stem hemorrhage stroke just over one year ago. He could stand up but when he walked, he had to walk with a wide stance in order not to fall over. He had no balance and he could only speak in a sing-song fashion. He could also not finish a conversation and had double vision. After two months of treatment, he can speak more quickly and clearly. He can now see clearly and walks better than before. From our view, he seems quite normal now except that he speaks a bit slow and still walks a bit slower than a normal person. He can write much better than he could before as well.

The third patient we met was Liu Bing who was a policeman who was only 22 and from Shenyang. He had a spine injury which caused him to have cerebral infarction. He came for treatment six months after. When we visited, it was only two weeks after his treatment started and he said he was very happy with the improvement because before he came, he could not walk and now he can walk. His right foot was still cramped up and his right hand still had muscle tension. We took a video and will go back in three weeks to check on the patients' progress. We will also add to the patient experiences section when we have enough information.

Going forward, Tiantan Puhua will use combination therapies for their treatment of patients with both medicine to promote neural stem cell growth, adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells cultured at SinoCells to treat CNS diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s, brain injury and stroke. The hospital is up to Western standards and the cost for treatment is between US $20,000 to US $30,000 with a treatment time of between one to two months. SinoCells’ stem cells have been used in about one hundred patients.