Ailing Boy Gets New Muscle Cells

Doctors injected healthy muscle cells into a muscular dystrophy patient’s foot for the first time Thursday in a move hailed as potentially offering a way to treat the crippling, fatal disease.

Sam Looper, 9, of Pickens, S.C., who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, had 8 million to 10 million immature muscle cells from his father’s arm injected into the muscle controlling the boy’s big toe at Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center, officials said.

The toe muscle was selected because it is easy to study. The operation, which has shown promise in years of tests on laboratory mice, is aimed at rejuvenating the dying muscle cells of muscular dystrophy patients, said Dr. Gerald Golden, who leads the University of Tennessee-Memphis team studying the approach.

There is no treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, the most common and severe type of muscular dystrophy in children. The inherited disorder strikes about one in every 3,500 boys, causing muscle damage and often leading to death before age 30.

The boy also received a small amount of cyclosporin to try to ward off rejection of the new cells, said Dr. Henry Herrod, a member of the research team. If the muscle injections prove successful, the next step is to move to larger muscles, Golden said.