Medical Breakthroughs: Experimental cell therapy in the works to treat seizures
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More than three million people suffer from uncontrollable seizures, or epilepsy, and it can be life-threatening, depending on when it happens.
For the first time, an experimental cell therapy is aiming to eliminate those seizures without medication or invasive brain surgery.
A new clinical trial for epilepsy is using a regenerative brain cell procedure to stop seizures
"Our goal, there, is to, actually, achieve seizure freedom," University of California San Diego Health Neurosurgeon Sharona Ben-Haim said.
Standard epilepsy treatment begins with medications, then removal of the parts of the brain causing the seizures. But there is a risk of damaging healthy brain tissue.
Now, doctors at UC San Diego are using MRI guidance to pinpoint the exact area causing the seizures. Then, cells derived from stem cells are injected.
"This therapy offers us the opportunity to not destroy tissue, but to, actually, rehabilitate it and recover it," UC San Diego Health Comprehensive Epilepsy Center Director Jerry Shih said.
The first patient they treated was a 38-year-old man who had five to eight seizures a month.
"He's had better than a 95% reduction in his seizures, which is tremendous," Shih said.
Doctors hope as time goes by, he may even become seizure-free.
The very first patient to have regenerative cell therapy in New York experienced 30 seizures a month and now, a year after treatment, is seizure-free.
Both patients are part of a National Clinical Trial.
Patients who participate must have temporal lobe epilepsy and will be monitored regularly for two years after the procedure.
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