CANADIAN CLINICS HAVE BEGUN OFFERING STEM-CELL INJECTIONS, RAISING QUESTIONS ABOUT WHETHER A TREATMENT WITH HUGE — BUT STILL UNPROVEN — POTENTIAL IS READY FOR ROUTINE PATIENT CARE.
Clinics opening despite lack of regulation
The arthritis in Maureen Munsie’s ankles was so intense until barely a year ago, she literally had to crawl on hands and knees to get upstairs.
The pain, she recalls now, “took my breath away,” and played havoc with the avid hiker’s favourite pastime.
In desperation, Munsie turned to a Toronto-area clinic that provides a treatment many experts consider still experimental, unproven and of questionable safety.
The 63-year-old says the stem cells she received at Regenervate Medical Injection Therapy 18 months ago were transformational, all but eliminating the debilitating soreness and even allowing her to hike Argentina’s Patagonia two months ago.
“For me it’s been a life saver,” Munsie says. “I’ve been able to do it all again … I don’t have any of that pain, at all.”
Canadians drawn to the healing promise of stem cells have for years travelled to such places as Mexico, China or Arizona.
But Regenervate is one of a handful of clinics in Canada that have begun offering injections of stem cells, satisfying growing demand but raising questions about whether a medical idea with huge potential is ready for routine patient care.
Especially when those patients can pay thousands of dollars for the service.
Clinics in Ontario and Alberta are treating arthritis, joint injuries, disc problems and even skin conditions with stem cells typically taken from patients’ fat tissue or bone marrow.
The underlying idea is compelling: stem cells can “differentiate” or transform into many other types of cell, a unique quality that evidence suggests allows them to grow or “regenerate” tissue damaged by disease or injury.
Researchers — including hundreds in Canada alone — are examining stem-cell treatments for everything from ailing hearts to severed spinal cords.
With few exceptions, however, the concept is still being studied in the lab or human trials; virtually none of the treatments have been definitively proven effective by science — or approved by regulators like Health Canada.
The fact Canadian clinics are now offering stem-cell treatments commercially is concerning on a number of levels, not least because of safety issues, says Ubaka Ogbogu, a health law professor at the University of Alberta.
Three U.S. women were blinded after receiving stemcell injections in their eyes, while other U.S. patients have developed bony masses or tumours at injection sites, Ogbogu said.
“Stem cells have to be controlled to act exactly the way you want them to act, and that’s why the research takes time,” he said. “It is simply wrong for these clinics to take a proof of concept and run with it.”
Ogbogu says Health Canada must crack down on the burgeoning industry but says the regulator has so far been conspicuous by its inaction.
Other experts say the procedures provided here — typically for joint pain — are likely relatively safe, but still warn that care must be taken that the stem cells do not develop into the wrong type of tissue, or at the wrong place.
Alberta Health Services concluded last year that there is an urgent need to develop a certification system for cell preparation and delivery to avoid “spontaneous transformation of (stem cells) into unwanted tissue.”
But one of the pioneers of the service in Canada says there’s no empirical evidence that such growths can develop, and suggests the only real risk is infection.
Meanwhile, patients at Regenervate have enjoyed impressive outcomes after paying fees from $750 to $3,900, says Dr. Douglas Stoddard, the clinic’s medical director.
About 80 per cent report less pain, stiffness and weakness within a few months of getting their stem-cell injection, he said.
“I believe medical progress is not just limited to the laboratory and randomized double-blind trials,” Stoddard said. “A lot of progress starts in the clinic, dealing with patients … You see something works, you see something has merit, and then it’s usually the scientists that seem to catch up later.”
The Orthopedic Sport Institute in Collingwood, Ont., the Central Alberta Pain and Rehabilitation Institute and Cleveland Clinic in Toronto all advertise similar stem-cell treatments for orthopedic problems. Edmonton’s Regen Clinic says it plans to start doing so this fall.
Orthopedic Sport says its doctor focuses on “FDA and Health Canada approved stem-cell injection therapy for patient care.”
In fact, no treatment of the sort the clinics here provide has ever been authorized.
Health Canada says the vast majority of stem-cell therapies would constitute a drug and therefore need to be authorized after a clinical trial or new drug submission.
A number of stem-cell trials are underway, but only one treatment — Prochymal — has been approved, said department spokesman Eric Morrissette. Designed to combat “graft-versus-host disease” — where bone marrow transplants for treating cancer essentially attack the patient’s body — it’s unlike any of the services the stemcell providers here offer.
But as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration aggressively pursues the hundreds of clinics in America, Health Canada says only that it’s committed to addressing complaints it receives.
It “will take action based on the risk posed to the general public,” said Morrissette.
Stoddard said the injections his clinics provide are made up of “minimally manipulated” tissue from patients’ own bodies and any attempt to crack down would be “regulation for the sake of regulation.”
But academic experts remain skeptical. Scientific evidence suggests the injections may help alleviate joint pain temporarily, but probably because of anti-inflammatory secretions from the cells — not regeneration, said Dr. David Hart, an orthopedic surgery professor at the University of Calgary who headed the Alberta workshop.
“There’s a need for understanding what’s going on here and there’s a need for regulation,” he said.