Two Canadians have been injected with a genetically modified version of their own adult stem cells in an attempt to cure pulmonary hypertension, a rare, debilitating lung disease.
The procedure, which has successfully cured rats with pulmonary hypertension, has halted the progress of the disease in the patients. The first patient, who has had the disease for 13 years, is reporting no ill effects from the treatment and has seen her condition improve.
Researchers are hopeful that the treatment eventually will reverse or even cure the disease.
"The use of ethical stem cells to treat disease is a positive and growing trend around the world,” Dawn Vargo, bioethics analyst of Focus on the Family Action, said. “There are an ever-growing number of rare diseases that are successfully being treated with adult stem cells."
