English

Organising Chairman and consultant neurosurgeon, Dr Parthiban Navoo, told all present at the workshop that stem cell treatment is regarded as cutting-edge technology and is the latest therapy open to patients with incurable, debilitating diseases who have exhausted all conventional treatment options.

Course Director for the workshop, Associate Professor Dr Chin Sze Piaw, an old boy of Melaka High School, said that the number of cells required depends on the type of disease, severity as well as the mode of delivery. The leading stem cell expert in this region added that the procedure of stem cell transplantation itself is simple enough for any skilled specialist in the relevant discipline to administer.

However the decision-making process is more important and the doctor must be competent enough in deciding where and how much to inject the cells. What is clear, however, is the reliance on live cells to replace damaged ones or regenerate new ones upon injection. Only one treatment is normally sufficient.

Dr Naayyer Naveed Wazir, a consultant orthopaedic and trauma surgeon who hails from Pakistan, reported ten initial cases of patients with severe osteoarthritis who should have undergone knee replacement. In all cases, the patients were ineligible due to other serious diseases. In all, there was a ninety percent return of significant and satisfactory function coupled with a 100 percent alleviation of pain by three months.

Dr Naveed added that MSC treatment will be a viable option for patients without any options left, or for patients who are suitable for knee replacement but for whom it would be desirable to delay the knee replacement for a few more years until they are older as the knee prostheses normally last about twenty years only.

Dr Chin said that many people today are apprehensive about stem cell therapy. To them, too many stem cells studies are confined only to animals. "This therapy is an exciting and promising field that will surely change the way we view and treat diseases in the future," said Dr Chin adding that sufferers of heart failure and osteoarthritis have benefited from this treatment.

Intense ongoing research into other diagnoses like renal failure, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, stroke, spinal cord injury, inter-vertebral disc disease, Parkinsonism and dementia hints of a possible cure in the near future.

Dr Kok Keng Weng and Dr Wong Chee Yin from Cytopeutics touched on the current applications of stem cells for clinical conditions as well stem cell processing and culture.

To sum up, Dr Parthiban said that the use of true adult stem cell for treatment of stroke and spinal cord injury is attractive. Pre-clinical studies have established the potential for true adult stem cell to be a useful and safe treatment for stroke in humans as the cells can cross the blood-brain barrier preferentially in areas that experienced brain damage. Stem cell treatment will likely give hope to many sufferers globally and especially to Malaysians since the expertise and technology is available locally.