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Babies born prematurely often face intense medical challenges, including underdeveloped or diseased intestines. Although a bowel transplant may benefit some patients, many babies are simply too small to support this procedure. Surgeon Tracy Grikscheit, MD, a surgeon at Los Angeles Children's Hospital, is a leader in the field of tissue engineering "from the intestine to stem cells. In an article published in Cell Stem Cell, Dr. Grikscheit and his co-authors highlight how stem cell therapy is about to change the rules of the game for these babies.
Some premature babies are born with a severely underdeveloped gastrointestinal tract or can develop diseases such as necrotizing enterocolitis, which attacks the intestines. In severe cases, surgical removal of the affected intestines must be performed. This can have disastrous consequences.
Most nutrients and water are absorbed in the small intestine. Therefore, if patients do not have enough healthy tissue, they can suffer serious complications such as malnutrition or dehydration. short bowel syndrome. To get the proper nutrients, patients sometimes have to be fed by means of a feeding tube or intravenously using a needle into the bloodstream. In the most severe cases of short bowel syndrome, the only solution is the small bowel transplant from donor tissue. but that too comes with its own list of problems. Babies must be tall enough for this procedure, which often means that they have to wait several months. Even in this case, the road is not easy. Patients should take anti-rejection drugs, which have their own side effects and the success rate of the transplant is only about 50%.
With such challenges, the future looks bleak for these babies. For Dr. Grikscheit, that is not acceptable. She wants more for her patients and she envisions a world in which missing parts of the intestines can be cultivated.
Scientists like Dr. Grikscheit are studying the growth of new tissues from stem cells to treat babies with severe intestinal deficiencies. Stem cell therapies would really improve current options, she says. Right now, these babies can either get a transplant or live on intravenous nutrition, which really affects how they can interact with the world and grow. There must be a better way.
The Cell Stem Cell article was written by Dr. Grikscheit and his colleagues as part of INTENS, a European consortium that promotes research on the treatment of children with intestinal insufficiency through the use of drugs. 39, tissue engineering. Tissue engineering is the process of producing new tissue in the laboratory from stem cells. The publication describes the progress made by researchers as well as the challenges scientists face in offering stem cell therapy to patients.
Stem cells have the ability to grow into any cell type, making it an ideal starting material for organ repair. The paper discusses two main ways in which stem cells could potentially treat babies with these intestinal problems. Stem cells can be removed from the patient's gut or commercially "from an origin source of stem cells that can be transformed into intestinal tissues.The two pathways each offer advantages patients and the type of treatment could depend on the state of health of each child.
Research in this area seems promising for future therapy. Recent advances have allowed researchers to generate more intestinal tissue than ever before.
According to Dr. Grikscheit, we were not yet at the stage of administering this therapy to babies, but we were in the process of developing the roadmap. Would get closer.
The main co-authors of the article include Dr. Kim B. Jensen of the University of Copenhagen and Dr. Paolo De Coppi of Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London. The INTENS Consortium is supported by the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (668294). Article DOI: 10.1016 / j.stem.2019.04.018
About The Children's Hospital Los Angeles
The Los Angeles Children's Hospital has been rated California's Best Children's Hospital and Canada's Sixth for Clinical Excellence by the prestigious US News and World Report Table of honor. The CHLA Saban Research Institute is one of the largest and most productive pediatric research centers in the United States. CHLA is also one of the largest teaching hospitals in the United States since its affiliation since 1932 to the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. For more information, visit CHLA.org, the Children's Health Blog, and the Research Blog.
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