Does anyone know this?

http://www.brazzini.com.pe/parkinson_sp.html

http://www.faim.org/stemcell/brazzin...sctvideos.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20346882

Intraarterial autologous implantation of adult stem cells for patients with Parkinson disease.

Abstract

PURPOSE:

To evaluate the feasibility, safety, and effectiveness of intraarterial autologous implantation of adult stem cells for Parkinson disease (PD).

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

From June 2006 to August 2008, 36 men and 14 women (mean age, 62.5 years +/- 10.4; range, 38-81 y) with PD (mean duration, 9.3 years; range, 1-28 y) underwent autologous implantation of stem cells with superselective arterial catheterization. Patients were evaluated with clinical and neurologic examinations; internationally recognized scales for the evaluation of PD, disability, activities of daily living, depression, and quality of life (QOL); as well as videos, magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, and MR spectroscopy. Stem cells were implanted in the posterior region of the circle of Willis. Patients were evaluated according to clinical measures. Comparison was made versus data collected from all scales before treatment, as well as videos and spectroscopy in eight patients.

RESULTS:

In a mean follow-up of 7.4 months +/- 4.5 (range, 1-18 months), patients showed a median improvement of 51.1% and quartile deviation (QD) of 24.8% on the Unified PD Rating Scale. They showed significant improvement in disability, activities of daily living, depression, and QOL (P < .5). No complications were observed. In eight patients, follow-up MR spectroscopy revealed mean improvements in n-acetylaspartate/creatine ratio from 1.805 to 2.07 (12.8%) and from 1.25 to 1.88 (43.56%) in right and left basal ganglia, respectively, versus preprocedural values (P < .05).

CONCLUSIONS:

Treatment of PD with intraarterial autologous implantation of adult stem cells is feasible and safe and results in improved severity of disease and QOL.

I can't get the videos to load on Faim's link....has anyone seen them? This sounds so promising....but so did that place in Germany that got shut down. Anyone know anything about the Brazzini institute?

Here's a thread from another forum, note the improvements...if true, this is pretty impressive:

http://www.stemcellpioneers.com/showthread.php?t=4310

Hi Lurkin, I*can see the*video,*just*click*on the play button*exactly. It sounds like promising. This treatment is available right now.
However, Dr. Lindvall will start this kind of treatment very soon, also. Do you remember this post? http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread180294.html
And Dr. Studer ? The road seems open, by now.

the transeuro transplants are using fetal cells. the unverified procedure you describe supossedly uses autologous stem cells. no way one can compare the two.

http://cordis.europa.eu/wire/index.c...tail&rcn=30867

remember the only substantiated successful autologous stem cell implant by dr. levesque in 2004,2005? he biopsied dennis turner's brain, isolated stem cells and over months converted them to neurons and injected them back into his substantia nigra on one side.
turner improved but after a few years was back to where he started. and levesque failed to commercialize his procedure.

Be very, very cautious about stem cell clinics. I have investigated and written for my PWP group about a few clinics that are nothing more than organized crime.
If you are considering stem cell treatment in any one of the 900 stem cell clinics worldwide that cater to "neuro tourists", here are some early warning signs that should cause you to run in the opposite direction:

Claims based on patient testimonials. Patients want to believe so much that a treatment is helping them that they can convince themselves that it has. They may even have experienced some recovery unrelated to the treatment. Unless there has been carefully evaluated clinical research it is very difficult to know what is a true effect of the treatment and what you can expect.

Multiple diseases treated with the same cells. Unless the diseases are related, such as all being diseases of the blood, different diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease and heart disease, would be expected to have very different treatments. Also, you want to be treated by a doctor that is a specialist in your disease.

The source of the cells or how the treatment will be done is not clearly documented. This should be clearly explained to you in a treatment consent form. In addition, there should be a ‘protocol’ that outlines the treatment in detail to the medical practitioner. The protocol is the ‘operating manual’ for the procedure. While it may not be made available to you automatically, you should be able to request this. For a clinical trial or experimental treatment, protocols should have been reviewed for scientific merit by independent experts and approved by an ethics committee to ensure that the rights and well-being of the participants will be respected. Ask who has approved this protocol and when the approval expires.

Claims there is no risk. There is always risk involved with treatment. Information about the possible risks should be available from preclinical or earlier clinical research.

High cost of treatment or hidden costs. It is not customary for someone to pay to be in a clinical trial (other than perhaps travel and other personal expenses). Consider whether you should pay for a treatment that is unproven. Furthermore, ask about the costs of emergency medical care if something goes wrong, particularly if you are outside your own country. Find out what costs your national health program or health insurance provider will cover, in what circumstances and in what countries.

I have personally been in contact with eleven Parkies who paid from $35,000 to $125,000 for unsuccessful treatment with stem cells – in fact several paid the money only to find out that the “doctors” skipped town with the money and no treatment took place; another clinic was run by a man who claimed to be have received his medical degree from a university that has never had a school of medicine. The clinics I am referring to were in places such as Mexico, the Ukraine, Thailand, and, yes, Bengladesh.

If you have the slightest notion of going to a stem cell clinic, study hard and armor yourself and be careful not to fall for their salesmanship – some of the clinics even hire top-level salesmen on commissions. And they are seductive, knowing how to play with the hopes and fears of suffering people.
So before you sign the consent form, which protects them but not you, read and study and dare to discuss it with your doctor and others, who will tell you that you are crazy, as if that was news.

Make sure you really review all the evidence before you plunge in. One of the eleven I talked to died two days after the treatment. Coincidence maybe, but it makes you read the consent form twice.

Stem Cell Network:

http://www.stemcellnetwork.ca/index....ge=home&hl=eng

International Society for Stem Cell Research: (part of the site is down and should be updated soon)

http://www.closerlookatstemcells.org/

The prevailing conclusion of scientists is that stem cell treatment for Parkinson’s is not ready at this time:

When will stem cell therapies be routinely available?'

Some stem cell therapies, such as bone marrow transplant and skin grafting are forms of stem cell therapy that have been shown to be safe and are readily available as a treatment option. Other stem cell therapies are still being studied and hold great promise for illnesses such as muscular dystrophies, retinal degeneration, Alzheimer disease, Parkinson's disease, arthritis, diabetes, spinal cord injuries, liver disease, and blood disorders such as hemophilia. Much of the current study using stem cells to treat these illnesses is in its early stages and will require considerable study and testing to ensure their safety and long term benefit.

Some of the challenges facing researchers who are developing these new stem cell therapies are 1) identifying and isolating the right type of stem cell, 2) developing conditions in which a cell can be coaxed into a state that is safe for a particular therapy, 3) delivering the cells to the right part of the body in a way that allows them to perform their regenerative function, and 4) overcoming immune reactions.

In researching this, I wondered why none of this is available in the US if a patient signs the consent form? We have all kinds of alternative treatments and therapies that, while not techinically "FDA approved", are nonetheless available if a patients wants to try it and is willing to fork over the $$ for an unknown therapy....

And lo! Just this past April, the state of Texas' medical board actually authorized stem cell treatments, which I assume will mean a doctor will be much more willing to offer this treatment to patients....here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/14/us...exas.html?_r=0

Not sure how newsy this is, though, because apparently the Texas Governor Rick Perry had stem cells for back pain some years ago, in Texas, but at least this might open the doors for others.

And of course California has been very active for years in researching this, not really news there. But a state-wide initiative to fund research into something and a medical board's authorization to use that something are two very different things. Hopefully, more states will join. Once this starts being done in the US, I think we will see a lot more hard data coming out as well as standardizations.

Thanks, Bob, for the caution, those claims of 80-100% recovery are so seductive. It's hard to believe sometimes how low humans will stoop to make a buck.

In the Amgen GDNF court trials, the patients were ready to sign absolutely any consent form but the judge said lawyers could tear apart any consent form in a future trial - saying the patients were distressed, not really knowing what they were consenting to; that if people die or get worse from the treatment, the consent form does not hold up - they did not consent to get worse; they had little knowledge compared to the scientists... so it's the doctor who gets sued for millions under tort law.
As PWP, they don't believe we consent even when we consent.
What part of "yes" do they not understand?
I consented
No you didn't
Yes I did
But your consent is not adequate as consent
I said I consent to everything in the universe
That's what they all say. Tell it to the judge
The judge says my word is the word of a brain-damaged trembling cognitively impaired spastic. My consent is not consenty enough because you can see I don't know what i am doing.
So why do we sign consent forms?
Look you are the patient. It is none of your business.

Thanks Bob for appropriate caution, it is very important what you have noted. Maybe when the discomfort for the disease, afflicts you, we would be ready to do everything, or almost. But we must be careful, however.

I found this interesting document on the web, updated to 2010: http://ebookbrowse.com/277-icms-2010...pdf-d256135036