Stem Cell Therapy For Autism Treatment

What Do We Think?

The following is the view of Autism Connect and is meant to help parents decide:

Based on a review of the literature, along with the information available in the public domain and personal discussions with parents who have already taken stem cell therapy for their children, we believe that stem cell therapy definitely offers a potential medical solution to healing those parts of the dysfunctional brain that cause autism.

We are in agreement with the statement made in the white paper published by the International Society for Cellular Therapy with regard to two aspects

• The right to seek treatment:
  "Patients seeking medical treatment for cellular therapies have the following rights that must be respected by healthcare providers and all associated with their care. a. The right to seek treatment: patients and their families/partners have the right to seek treatments for their diseases. No entity should withhold this fundamental right unless there is a high probability of harm to the patients. b. The right to information: patients have the right to an accurate representation regarding the safety and efficacy record of the cell treatment. This includes probable side-effects and a truthful record of efficacy. c. The right to informed consent: patients have a right to a true informed consent process that includes all the elements described above."

• Distinction between legitimate medical stem cell therapy services and fraudulent services:
  "The following guidelines are useful in assessing scientific rigor and for differentiating between legitimate cell therapy medical services (including clinical trials and medical innovation) and fraudulent cell therapies."

  • Peer review and transparency: consumers of cell therapy medical innovation should evaluate evidence from peer-reviewed publications, professional society presentations and scientific recognition. They should be encouraged to seek multiple professional opinions and have all questions answered to their satisfaction.

  • Safety and regulatory history: patients should consider the reputation of the investigator and clinic, as well as the record of disciplinary activities against these entities.

  • Informed consent:patients should expect to be informed fully and accurately of the risks, benefits, costs, safety, compensation for injury, investigator conflicts of interest and alternative therapies, as a minimum."

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Bearing this in mind, as a minimum, below are our recommendations to parents looking at the option of stem cell therapy for their children

(Please note that this is not a substitute for a formal medical advice and all parents are required to do their own due diligence before making this important decision.)

All parents should initially try the conventional rehabilitative treatment such as occupational therapy, speech therapy, ABA, etc. They should also take all the medications advised by the pediatric neurologists/psychiatrists/other physicians to control symptoms such as epilepsy, hyperactivity, etc. Complementary treatment such as dietary regulation, supplements, etc. may also be considered. Stem cell therapy should be considered only for those where despite all conventional rehabilitation, the child continues to remain significantly symptomatic.

Once parents have decided to consider stem cell therapy, the next important decision would be which type of stem cells to take and where to undergo the therapy. The following is our view in this connection:

We believe in safety first and therefore recommend that at this stage of evolution of stem cell therapy, it is safer to use:

• Autologous stem cells

• Minimally manipulated stem cells

• Bone marrow derived stem cells (since these are obtained by a needle aspiration only, as compared to abdominal fat stem cells, which require a surgical procedure of laparoscopy to extract the fat from the abdomen).

We would also recommend that parents should consider only those centres that have published their safety and clinical research in scientific medical journals.

The reason for this is that when something is published in a medical journal, it is considered as peer-reviewed. This means that someone apart from the treating doctor has reviewed the safety and efficacy of the treatment and considered it worthy and accurate enough to be published in their journal. We believe that information on hospital and clinic websites online is not good enough, since there is no system of checks and balances to ensure that only authentic and accurate information is put up on the website.

On review of the medical literature through the PubMed scientific database, we have found that the following centers have published their clinical results in medical journals. These are listed in the chronological order of date of publication:

1. NeuroGen Brain and Spine Institute, Mumbai, India

Total Number Of Scientific Publications On Stem Cell Therapy in Autism: 15

Main Publication: Autologous bone marrow mononuclear cell therapy for autism - an open label proof of concept study. Stem cell international. 2013(2013), Article ID 623875, 13 pages. Alok Sharma, Nandini Gokulchandran, Hemangi Sane, Anjana Nagrajan, Amruta Paranjape, Pooja Kulkarni, Akshata Shetty, Priti Mishra, Mrudula Kali, Hema Biju, Prerna Badhe. Click here to access full text article.

The above publication, along with 14 more publications on autism from this institute, can be accessed here

2. Shenzhen Beike Biotechnology Co Ltd Shenzhen China

Total Number Of Scientific Publications On Stem Cell Therapy in Autism: 1

Yong-Tao Lv, Yun Zhang, Min Liu, Jia-na- tiQiuwaxi, Paul Ashwood, Sungho Charles Cho et al. Transplantation of human cord blood mononuclear cells and umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells in autism. Journal of Translational Medicine 2013, 11:196

The above can be accessed here

3. Emcell, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Total Number Of Scientific Publications On Stem Cell Therapy in Autism: 1

Bradstreet JJ, Sych N, Antonucci N, Klunnik M, Ivankova O, Mat Yashchuk I, M Demchuk; Siniscalco D. Efficacy of fetal stem cell transplantation in autism spectrum disorders: an open-labeled pilot study. 2014;23 Suppl1:S105-12

The above can be accessed here

4. Duke Centre for Autism and Brain Development, Duke University Medical Centre, Durham, USA

Total Number Of Scientific Publications On Stem Cell Therapy in Autism: 1

Dawson, Geraldine, Jessica M. Sun, Katherine S. Davlantis, Michael Murias, Lauren Franz, Jesse Troy, Ryan Simmons, Maura Sabatos‐DeVito, Rebecca Durham, and Joanne Kurtzberg. "Autologous cord blood infusions are safe and feasible in young children with autism spectrum disorder: Results of a single‐center phase I open‐label trial."Stem Cells Translational Medicine 6, no. 5 (2017): 1332-1339.

The above can be accessed here

Although many centers all over the world claim to get good clinical results with stem cell therapy, there is no way we can authenticate or validate those claims. Hence, our recommendation to parents is to preferably consider the centers, whose work is published.