Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, January 23, 2002
Nerve Stem Cells Transplant Wakes Chinese Comatose Patient
A comatose patient with cerebral paralysis in Zhengzhou has regained consciousness after receiving an embryo nerve stem cell transplant. Currently, the movement barriers of the patient have been removed completely. His physical functions have come back to a normal state.
A comatose patient with cerebral paralysis in Zhengzhou, capital of central China's Henan Province has regained consciousness after receiving an embryo nerve stem cell transplant.
The patient became unconscious with serious head injuries he suffered in a traffic accident last December.
But an operation to transplant 3.2 million purified embryo nerve stem cells into his body revived him.
Four days after the operation, the patient came round, and gradually recovered the strength of his limbs. He could also take food by himself, according to doctors in charge of his case.
Currently, the movement barriers of the patient have been removed completely. His physical functions have come back to a normal state with the stiff muscles caused by the long-time contracture becoming soft and flexible again.
Stem Cell Research in China
Last December Chinese scientists succeeded in curing a mouse of lower paralysis four months after implanting nerve stem cells from a human embryo.
The cells, separated from the human embryo, had been cultivated for nine months, the longest time for similar cases.
There is hope that in the near future patients suffering from paralysis due to nerve severance will be able to stand again after stem cell implantation, says Liu Enchong, a neurosurgeon.
The nerve stem cell transplant is regarded as a new solution for Parkinson's syndrome and other high-incidence diseases affecting elderly people.
In the past, patients of those diseases were given chemical treatment or received intravenous injections, but these proved either to be not very effective or to have undesirable side- effects.
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