title: Clinical response of 277 patients with spinal cord injury to stem cell therapy in iraq.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Spinal cord injury is a common neurological problem secondary to car accidents, war injuries and other causes, it may lead to varying degrees of neurological disablement, and apart from physiotherapy there is no available treatment to regain neurological function loss. Our aim is to find a new method using autologous hematopoietic stem cells to gain some of the neurologic functions lost after spinal cord injury.
  
  
  RESULTS
  277 patients suffering from spinal cord injury were submitted to an intrathecally treatment with peripheral stem cells. The cells were harvested from the peripheral blood after a treatment with G-CSF and then concentrated to 4∼ 6 ml. 43% of the patients improved; ASIA score shifted from A to B in 88 and from A to C in 32. The best results were achieved in patients treated within one year from the injury.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Since mesenchymal cells increase in the peripheral blood after G-CSF stimulation, a peripheral blood harvest seems easier and cheaper than mesenchymal cell cultivation prior to injection. It seems reasonable treatment for spinal cord injury.
authors.affiliation: Bone Marrow Transplantation Center, Medical City, Baghdad, Iraq.
authors.forename: Abdulmajeed Alwan
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Hammadi
authors.forename: Andolina
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Marino
authors.forename: Saad
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Farhan
keywords: Mesenchymal cells; Spine injury; Stem cells