Crohn’s Disease is a chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract mostly affects small intestine and colon. It causes inflammation, deep ulcers and scarring on the wall of the intestine. Patients suffer from abdominal pain, diarrhoea, fatigue, weight loss and surgical complications of ulcers.

Currently Crohn’s Disease has no cure. Therapeutic treatment of disease progression includes steroids and immune suppressant drugs.

Based on the concept of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation efficacy in autoimmune diseases, a few clinical trials were started in the USA and Italy. You can find a good summary and background for hematopoietic stem cells transplantation to cure Crohn’s Disease in this review.

Recently, the Europe-wide trial was launched by University of Nottingham (UK) researchers.

Trial will find out whether stem cells taken from a sufferer’s own body could provide effective long-term remission for tens of thousands of people in the UK and many more worldwide.

The Europe-wide trial, which is currently recruiting patients, is the first of its kind in the world to treat Crohn’s.
But if the Nottingham-led stem cell therapy is successful, Professor Chris Hawkey and colleagues Dr Paul Fortun and Dr Tony Shonde believe that in the future it could just possibly mean a cure for up to 50 per cent of sufferers.

Professor Hawkey and his team intend to recruit 48 volunteers who are suffering with the most serious symptoms, from the UK, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and the Czech Republic and Canada. The study is called ASTIC – which stands for Autologous Stem cell Transplant International Crohn’s Disease trial.

Source:
University of Nottingham (2007, November 30). Could Stem Cells Be Used To Cure Crohn’s Disease?ScienceDaily. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2007/11/071130223834.htm