Treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis with bone marrow stem cells
Patients with the deadly superbug tuberculosis could one day be treated with stem cells taken from their own bone marrow, according to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet on January 9.
A team of British and Swedish scientists conducted an early-stage trial on 30 patients, aged 21-65, with multidrug-resistant (MDR) and extensively drug-resistant (XDR) tuberculosis. These patients were treated with standard tuberculosis antibiotics and at the same time received an infusion of about 10 million of their own stem cells.
The stem cells were taken from the patient's bone marrow and grown in large numbers in the laboratory before being re-infused into the patient. The results showed that more than 50% of the patients treated with the above combination method were cured after 6 months.
Mechanistically, tuberculosis bacteria cause an inflammatory response in immune cells and tissues surrounding the lungs, which can cause immune dysfunction and tissue destruction in the body.
Meanwhile, bone marrow stem cells migrate to inflamed, damaged areas of the lung and repair damaged tissue. These stem cells also calm the body's immune response and may promote the elimination of TB bacteria.
During the treatment trial, scientists found that the treatment was safe and well tolerated by patients. In particular, no serious side effects occurred, other than common side effects such as high cholesterol levels, nausea, low white blood cell counts and diarrhea.
Tuberculosis expert Alimuddin Zumla of University College London, co-author of the study, said the results showed that the current challenges and difficulties of treating MDR or XDR are not insurmountable and the new research offers hope to hundreds of thousands of drug-resistant TB patients worldwide.
Tuberculosis, which causes a bacterial infection in the lungs, can be passed from person to person through the air. In recent years, drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis have spread around the world and are resistant to all standard antibiotic treatments.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in Eastern Europe, Asia and South Africa there are about 450,000 people with MDR and 50% of them do not respond to current treatments./.
According to VNA
