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Dario Fauza, MD |
Delivering neural stem cells (NSC) into the spinal cord in utero could enhance the treatment of spina bifida, according to researchers at Children's. The team modeled spina bifida in fetal lambs—similar in weight and size to a human fetus—dividing the fetuses into three groups. The first received no surgery, the second had standard surgical repair and the third had surgery and an infusion of NSC to the spinal cord. Initial evidence of ongoing spinal cord repair was found in the third, experimental group.
Dario Fauza, MD, associate in Surgery, who led the study, sees this as an improvement on simply covering the neural tube opening to prevent further insult to the spinal cord, which is the only procedure offered to date. Next, he plans on examining various NSC sources and cell-delivery methods to generate longer-term data and get a better grasp of this method's usefulness in humans.
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