Patients turn to stem cells for hope

Doctors share UM trial success stories

Boynton Beach resident Diana Broder, 76, rolled into the World Stem Cell Summit in her wheelchair, accompanied by her husband Ernest and a caregiver. She wanted to know: Were there any credible stem cell therapies in South Florida that would help her?

As she describes it, she has “crappy lungs.” Yet she wore a smile on her face and was determined to collect any information she could at the “public day” of the four-day World Stem Cell Summit that began Tuesday at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach.

Broder said she has looked into stem-cell therapies. But the results seem short-term and they’re “very expensive.”

For patients such as herself, as well as for local physicians and clinicians, the summit offers presentations about the potential benefits — and risks — generated by therapies.

Broder said she was inspired by a presentation by Dr. Evan Zimmer, a Palm Beach County psychiatrist, who received a stem cell treatment under a clinical trial with the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. Zimmer, now 65, told a powerful story about being in a coma and suffering heart failure. He was fortunate to emerge from the coma after 10 days, but his heart muscle drastically weakened.

“I was advised a heart transplant was my only option and that I probably wouldn’t live long enough,” he said.

But then he happened to see a television ad for the University of Miami’s cardiac clinical trial program. He was admitted to a double-blind trial where he and his doctors didn’t know whether he had received his own stem cells or a donor’s.

“I was interested in having hope, just hope,” Zimmer said.

After receiving an injection of stem cells into his heart in 2011, Zimmer said his peripheral nerve pain went away in two weeks. Five years later, he feels like a “new man.” Zimmer calls it a “miracle,” but said it was the people and opportunities that made a difference.

At the summit, Dr. Joshua Hare, who led the FDA-approved clinical trial at University of Miami, presented findings from two clinical trials. They included the one Zimmer participated in. The other trial looked at frail patients 60 years and older.

Thirty-seven patients were in the first clinical trial. Those who received a donor’s stem cells, including Zimmer, experienced reduced scar tissue, grew new blood vessels and reduced inflammation. The donor cells also stimulated generation of new cells in the patient, Hare said.

“Fifty percent of the patients no longer had the disease after one year,” Hare said. “This is as close as what we consider a cure in these patients.”

In the second clinical trial, Hare’s team found that stem cell effectiveness was “not lost in older patients.” Two groups were given different doses of stem cell therapy: 100 million and 200 million, while the third received a placebo. Those who received the 100 million stem cell dose showed increased physical activity.

Despite the success at the University of Miami, clinicians at the summit warned that patients should only sign up for an FDAapproved clinical trial.

Darcy DiFede, director of research at the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute, said patients should make sure the clinic has reputable physicians who are licensed for the procedure. “Make sure there is more than a brochure and testimonials,” she said.