Boy Develops Brain Tumors After Fetal Stem Cell Treatment

A boy with ataxia telangiectasia (AT) has developed brain tumors after being treated with injections of fetal neural stem cells. AT is an immunodeficiency disease that affects a number of different organs in the body, including essential neural cells that cannot be replaced by the body when they become damaged or diseased. AT is a rare, recessive genetic disorder of childhood that occurs in between 1 out of 40,000 and 1 out of 100,000 persons worldwide.

In May 2001 at the age of 9 y, in March 2002 at the age of 10 y, and in July 2004 at the age of 12 y, his parents took him to be treated in Moscow with repeated transplantation of fetal stem cells.

In February 2005 at the age of 13 he was taken to the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv where the boy was diagnosed with a multifocal brain tumor. Researchers at the Sheba Medical Center identified growths in his brain and spinal cord. In September 2006 at the age of 14 y, surgery was performed and a spinal tumor localized at L3-4 level was removed. The researchers found cells in the tumor that must have come from at least two donors.

Stem cell therapy and neural stem cells, in particular, provide hope to patients affected by devastating diseases. However, such innovative treatments also carry substantial risks and the potential for malignant transformation of transplanted cells has been raised. The occurrence of a donor origin brain tumor in the patient described here provides the first proof that the concerns raised are valid.

References:
1. Amariglio N, Hirshberg A, Scheithauer BW, Cohen Y, Loewenthal R, et al. (2009) Donor-Derived Brain Tumor Following Neural Stem Cell Transplantation in an Ataxia Telangiectasia Patient. PLoS Med 6(2): e1000029 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000029.