If you have been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease or know someone that has, then you understand the anxiety, pain, discomfort, and frustration that follows this disease.
Treatment options have been limited; but stem cells have joined the clinical arsenal.
What is Crohn’s Disease
Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory condition affecting the digestive tract. People with Crohn’s disease experience a wide range of frustrating symptoms including:
- Abdominal cramping and pain
- Diarrhea
- Weight loss
The immune system also behaves differently in these individuals. The immune system of people with Crohn’s will frequently attack healthy areas of the gastrointestinal tract. This is what causes many of the symptoms.
Diagnosing the disease is almost as problematic as the disease itself. There are no tests that definitely tell a person they have Crohn’s. Instead, doctors need to rule out other problems that have similar symptoms.
Treatment options for the disease are limited to anti-diarrhetics and medicines that address the immune system’s inflammation.
More extreme cases of the disease may require surgery. This is more typical in cases where medication no longer suppresses the symptoms or in the case where the individual has developed a fistula or intestinal obstruction. In these cases, the affected area is surgically removed. While not a cure, this approach does tend to bring relief for a few years.
Where do Stem Cells Fit into Treatment Options for Crohn’s Disease
Let’s start by being very clear. There are no current cures for the disease. Medicines aim to treat symptoms, and surgery helps by removing high problem areas.
Additionally, researchers have been evaluating whether stem cells may present a practical solution to treatment. Progress continues to be made; but the research has been as frustrating as the disease itself.
2015 Stem Cell Case Study
Doctor Christopher Hawkey of the Queen’s Medical Center in Nottingham England has been researching methods for treating Crohn’s disease for nearly 20-years.
His most recent results were published in December 2015. The findings were inconsistent across all patients evaluated. His results identified those patients not eligible for surgery had ineffective results following stem cell transplants.
According to Doctor Hawkey,”In this group of the most resistant cases of Crohn’s disease , stem cell transplant was an effective treatment, but it is not a miracle cure that could be applied to anyone with Crohn’s disease, because it only seems to work in a minority of patients and the treatment is challenging and hazardous.”
This study involved 45 patients and as Dr. Hawkey points out, provided mixed results. The primary challenge he points out is the risk of infection from the procedure.
The procedure is designed to replace the immune system in the digestive tract and essential treat the problem at it’s source.
So what were his results? 61% of the patients provided the treatment were able to discontinue their regular treatments whereas only 23% of a control group was able to discontinue their treatment.
Dr. Hawkey further elaborated, “Stem cell transplantation is probably the most effective treatment for Crohn’s disease, but also the most toxic. It cannot be recommended for widespread use at the present time but may be a risk worth taking for a small number of patients who have run out of treatment options.”
The focus for this team moving forward will be to identify which people are most likely to benefit from this form of treatment versus those that would not.
Future Advances
The case study above represents just one of several studies conducted by Dr. Hawkey and he represents just one of dozens of individuals actively researching stem cell application in the treatment of Crohn’s disease.
No cure has been identified to date; but according to researchers, there are certainly individuals that benefit from treatment given the right conditions.
References:
Christopher Hawkey, F.Med.Sci., gastroenterology professor, Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, England; policy statement, Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America; Dec. 15, 2015, Journal of the American Medical Association
