Myasthenia gravis is a serious neuromuscular disease that causes progressive disability. Now, MedPage Today reports on an early human study showing success in beating it into remission:
In patients with persistent severe myasthenia gravis (MG), replacing their old lymphocytes with new ones generated by their own stem cells achieved long-term remission without further treatment, a retrospective cohort study showed.
All seven patients in the study achieved complete, durable, stable remission — some for more than a decade — after autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT), Harold Atkins, MD, of the University of Ottawa in Ontario, and colleagues reported in JAMA Neurology.
Patients had no further MG symptoms and did not require ongoing therapy over a period of 2.5 years to almost 13 years following high-dose chemotherapy, antithymocyte globulin, and CD34-selected HSCT, they reported.
This is an onerous therapy, not undertaken lightly. But what a great achievement! And look ma, no embryonic stem cells in sight.