Translational research : the journal of laboratory and clinical medicine
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Clinical Trial
Open-labeled study of unilateral autologous bone-marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cell transplantation in Parkinson's disease.
Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease for which stem cell research has created hope in the last few years. Seven PD patients aged 22 to 62 years with a mean duration of disease 14.7+/-7.56 years were enrolled to participate in the prospective, uncontrolled, pilot study of single-dose, unilateral transplantation of autologous bone-marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs). The BM-MSCs were transplanted into the sublateral ventricular zone by stereotaxic surgery. ⋯ These results indicate that our protocol seems to be safe, and no serious adverse events occurred after stem-cell transplantation in PD patients. The number of patients recruited and the uncontrolled nature of the trial did not permit demonstration of effectiveness of the treatment involved. However, the results encourage future trials with more patients to demonstrate efficacy.