stem cell research etc.

[Guest guest]

Recently a Dr. Yoshiki Sawa took stem cells from the thigh

muscles of a patient with severe cardiac disease, grew them into

sheets of muscle, and applied those to the outside of his heart

like band-aids, and the new muscle began regulating the beating

of the heart and improved his heart disease.

http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2007/12/adult-stem-cells-appear-to-be-working.h\

tml

I wonder whether something similar will ever be done on the

esophagus for achalasia.

But I also wonder when we'll find out the reason why " The serum

of achalasia patients alters neurochemical coding in the

myenteric plexus and NO-mediated motor response in normal human

fundus " :

http://gut.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/gut.2005.070011v1

(Specimens of normal human stomach were maintained in culture in

the presence of serum from patients with achalasia, patients with

reflux disease, or healthy subjects. Only the serum of achalasia

patients affected the proportions of different types of myenteric

neurons, including a lower proportion of neurons that produce

nitric oxide--the neurons that are lacking in the esophageal

muscle of achalasia patients.)

As Notan has commented, it may not do any good to use stem cell

therapy to replace the missing neurons if something in the serum

of achalasia patients is going to kill those neurons anyway.

Some doctors in Texas including Drs. Micci and Jay Pasricha

are doing research in mice on stem cell therapy for achalasia and

other GI disorders, but it is very preliminary and trials in

humans are probably still many years away:

http://www.utmb.edu/utmbmagazine/archive/03_Fall/strands/GI_disorders.htm

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/113390050/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1 & \

SRETRY=0