Fetal Cell Study Shows Promise for Parkinson’s

The first federally funded trial to study the effectiveness of fetal cell transplants for Parkinson’s disease has proved that it works for some patients, mainly those under 60.

The surgical technique requires the use of dopamine cells from aborted fetal brain tissue and had sparked much debate since the first operation was performed 10 years ago. A ban against funding such research on fetal tissue was imposed in 1988 and lifted in 1993.

The findings from the four-year, $5-million study were heralded as a major breakthrough for a disease that cripples 1.5 million Americans.

“It makes me very optimistic and bullish that we are making inroads at curing Parkinson’s,” said Dr. Gerald Fischbach, director of the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders. “The surgery worked, and it was safe.”

Before the trial, no one knew for sure whether transplanted undeveloped fetal cells would find their right connections and provide patients with the much-needed brain chemical, dopamine, depleted by the illness. Parkinson’s is a degenerative disease that prompts constant tremors and muscle rigidity that can lead to problems walking, moving and talking.

Ten years ago, Dr. Curt Freed, a professor of medicine and pharmacology at the University of Colorado, took dopamine-rich brain tissue from aborted fetuses and implanted it into Parkinson’s patients.

In 1993, Freed teamed with Parkinson’s experts at the Columbia-Presbyterian Center in New York to conduct the first double-blind controlled trials on the fetal cells.

They submitted the grant only months after President Clinton lifted the ban against funding research on fetal tissue.

In 1994, the grant was approved. They operated on 40 patients, half of whom received the fetal cells.

Wednesday, preliminary findings revealed that the cells do grow and divide and provide some patients with relief. The research team, led by Columbia-Presbyterian’s Dr. Stanley Fahn, reported their findings at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Toronto.

It is too early to say whether this surgery will become a mainstay for Parkinson’s treatment.