Shenzhen Beike Biotechnology Co., Ltd. announced the successful treatment of two similar spinal cord injury patients using two different procedures that involved umbilical cord stem cells.  One method involved surgical transplantation of stem cells directly into the spinal cord, while the other patient received the stem cells without surgery.  The announcement was made following a two month rehabilitation and evaluation period by physicians in the patients’ native countries of the U.S.A. and Romania. 

For patient experiences with videos see: Razvan Iordache and Gerald Allen.

Treatments with umbilical cord blood stem cells have been performed for years for patients with leukemia and other diseases. However, the treatment of stroke patients and those with other neurological diseases with stem cells from human umbilical cords has become increasingly popular only recently. Today, these treatments are being taken forward by countries outside the United States, including China, as FDA approval takes longer.

In the first half of April 2006, Beike provided umbilical cord stem cells for the treatment of Gerald Allen, a 27 year old American with an incomplete spinal cord injury at the c5-c6 disk level that occurred in 2002.  Romanian citizen Razvan Iordache also suffered an incomplete spinal cord injury at the c5-c6 level in 1996. Gerry Allen underwent surgical implantation of umbilical cord stem cells during a two and ½ hour procedure at Beike, complimented by both intravenous injections and injections into the cerebral spinal cord fluid. Razvan Iordache had stem cell injections into his spinal cord fluid and an intravenous injection without the surgery. Due to national regulations neither patient could receive treatment in their own countries.

Both patients had been doing rehabilitation for years before coming to China, with little to no improvement. Gerald Allen’s doctors in the United States had actually stopped prescribing rehabilitation. After the treatments, Gerald gained increased mobility in both his legs and arms, regained the sensation of hot and cold on his body, and he could even perspire below his neck again. When he returned to the United States, his doctor immediately prescribed rehabilitation again due to the progress.

Gerald Allen said, “I was pretty skeptical before going for treatment but the guys at stemcellschina.com put me in touch with some other patients who had been treated by Beike, and that calmed my nerves. I am really happy that I went. Being able to grab things more easily or take steps backward does not sound like a big deal, but for me it is awesome. Sweating may also not sound like much, but I live in Florida and now I can go outside again during the day for more than ten minutes without passing out. The best thing is that two months out I am still improving and I am not going to quit until I can walk again.”

Gerald’s wife, Jennifer, now has an easier time helping him in and out of the car, getting him out of the couch into his wheelchair and getting him out of bed. Jennifer had to have a knee operation after the injury due to continually having to lift Jerry. However, She is not completely happy with these new improvements. “In general my life is a lot easier now with these changes and I am thankful. However there is one area that has gotten worse: now that Gerald can sweat, I have ended up doing a lot more laundry”, Jennifer said smiling.

Razvan Iordache re-gained sensation below his chest down to his legs and is now able to move his fingers and stomach muscles, and feet along with great improvement in bladder control. He said, “It is a general boost in the quality of my life.  I am most happy about being able to move my fingers and feet. I still have a long way to go but I am improving and my therapist has said that I have made more progress in three months than I have the last years. I plan on going back in October for another treatment, and this time I may have the surgery like Jerry did.”

After returning home, Razvan went back to his rehabilitation center and started letting other patients know about the treatment. Since then two other Romanian patients (one with a complete spinal cord injury and one with syringomyelia have made the trip out to Shenzhen and have also been happy with their improvements.  Razvan said, “I have stared a trend back in my home country. All of my friends in our rehabilitation facility have worked very hard for our improvements. People have seen the jump in my improvements and all want to come. There will be a stream of patients coming after me. It is just a matter of getting the funds raised. Luckily, in our country, there are charitable organizations that help raise money for these treatments. “

Dr. Sean Hu, chairman of Beike, said, “We are very happy for both of the patients and have put these cases out to the public to spread awareness that there are different procedures available when treating patients with umbilical cord stem cells. This is just the start as in the future we plan to combine the umbilical cord stem cell therapies with other treatments to get what we hope will be even better results. We have treated many Chinese patients but we felt that these two cases were of interest because they were treated almost at the same time and both had somewhat similar injuries.”

China Stem Cell News Notes: Both of these patients were happy with their improvements and both want to go back for another treatment. It is nearly impossible to say which type of treatment is better as it is very hard to find spinal cord injuries that can be categorized as exactly similar. However, if you speak with doctors and scientists, they generally suggest that the surgical procedure must be the best way based on the way they have seen stem cells migrate in animal studies. Whatever the case, the Beike surgical treatment is different from others in China for spinal cord injury in that they follow up the surgical procedure with injections into the spinal cord fluid. This ensures a more sustained delivery of stem cells over time. Most treatments only inject the stem cells one time during the entire treatment.