He can walk!
It took long enough for 38 year old Darek
Fidyka, a Polish man, to walk again. It’s been two years since he had the cell
transplant surgery in 2012 and now he can walk. Darek was paralyzed from the
chest down after a knife attack in 2010, caused by an 8mm gap in his spinal
cord. In about two years of rehabilitation and programs to help him regain some
ability in his legs, it was obvious they didn’t work and his condition just
didn’t improve. The cell surgery that was successful on him was developed by
scientists at University College London, UCL. Surgeons at Wroclaw University led
by Dr. Pawel Tabakow performed the treatment. The idea was developed by Geof
Raisman, surgeons took olfactory ensheathing cells (OECs) from Fidyka’s nose
and transplanted them to the ends of the spinal cord gap and then used nerve
tissue from his ankle to act as a bridge for spinal nerves to grow on. OECs were
used because the cells regrew nerve cells in the nose when they become damaged,
letting people to regain their sense of smell.
Now they say they only have
one patient, and a lot more work needs to be done for the procedure to be
further developed, but they have a working start, and it’s very much a breakthrough
in medical science that will be looked closely at by thousands of paralyzed
spinal cord injury patients. I think the research will be very successful in
the future, the patient described regaining his ability to move his legs to
being reborn again, it worked and I know it will work again on other patients.
I find it wonderful science has gone so far and when medical science help
people rather the opposite, it brings hope to those who’ve really given up.
No comments:
Post a Comment