Allogenic umbilical cord blood therapy combined with erythropoietin for patients with severe traumatic brain injury: Three case reports

Abstract

Objective: To report the safety and efficacy of a novel therapeutic trial with umbilical cord blood (UCB) and concomitant recombinant human erythropoietin (rhEPO), which was tried for three cases of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) in rehabilitation. Design: Case series. Setting: University hospital setting. Participants: Three patients with TBI over 6-months post-injury. Interventions: Intravascular administration of allogenic UCB and injection of rhEPO, and rehabilitation therapy. Outcomes: For safety, adverse events, symptom, vital signs, blood chemistry, and hematologic study; for efficacy, modified Barthel index, motor assessment scale, Fugl-Meyer assessment of upper extremity, motor-free visual perception test, mini-mental screening examination, and brain images. Results: There were no serious adverse events and the participants showed improvements during the follow-up periods in various aspects. Patient 1 demonstrated improvements in motor and cognitive function. Diffusion tensor images showed increased nerve fibers. Patient 2 displayed improvements in activities of daily living. In Patient 3, neurogenic fever vanished and Brain PET revealed increased glucose metabolism at basal ganglia, thalami, and cerebellum. Conclusions: The allogenic UCB therapy combined with rhEPO in the present study was safe and suggested potential therapeutic efficacy for patients with TBI. Controlled clinical trials are now needed to document efficiacy and safety in a larger patient sample.

Plasma derived from human umbilical cord blood: Potential cell‐additive or cell‐substitute therapeutic for neurodegenerative diseases

“…In this context, numerous studies have shown neuroprotective effects of MNC hUCB administered into animal models of ALS, AD, Parkinson's disease, ischaemic stroke and traumatic brain injury . However, insignificant numbers of MNC hUCB were detected in the CNS of these animal models after intravenous cell administration.…”

Combining Human Umbilical Cord Blood Cells With Erythropoietin Enhances Angiogenesis/Neurogenesis and Behavioral Recovery After Stroke

“…Human UCB containing citrate phosphate dextrose adenine as an anticoagulant was provided from the cord blood bank of CHA Medical Center. Informed by previous clinical trials (27), we injected a total of 3 × 10 7 kg nucleated cells. This experiment was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of CHA Bundang Medical Center, Korea.…”

“…The number of total nucleated cells of hUCBC used in treatment was based on our previous clinical trial which was performed in patients with traumatic brain injury (27). Furthermore, the dosage of EPO was selected based on a corresponding dose in a clinical trial for cerebral palsy (28) that is considered safe for humans.…”

Safety of allogeneic umbilical cord blood infusions for the treatment of neurological conditions: a systematic review of clinical studies

“…The most common neurological condition studied was cerebral palsy [18,20,24À26,28]. The remaining studies targeted autism spectrum disorder [22]; stroke [21]; traumatic brain injury [19]; or a mixture of conditions, including neurological (>59% recruited with a neurological condition [27]. All participant data from Vyas et al [27] were included in the results, regardless of condition.…”