Patients with Covid-19 recover during clinical trial
Doctors are testing stem cell therapy on patients with Covid-19. Mesoblast produces regenerative medicine. They stated on Friday that following a preliminary study, they will continue to a study testing the treatment on 300 patients with the virus.
“What we saw in the very first patient was that within four hours of getting the cells, a lot of her parameters started to get better,” Dr. Karen Osman, who led the team at Mount Sinai, told CBS News’ Adriana Diaz.
Dr. Osman was reluctant to acknowledge that the recovery was a consequence of the stem cell treatment.
“We don’t know” if the 10 people removed from ventilators would not have gotten had they not gotten the stem cells, she said. “And we would never dare to claim that it was related to the cells.”
She explained that only a “randomized controlled trial” would be the only way “to make a true comparison.”
Luis Naranjo, a 60-year-old man survived Covid-19. His daughter, Paola, took him to the emergency room.
Doctors put Naranjo on a ventilator. He was unconscious for 14 days before getting stem cell therapy.
Doctors proposed giving him stem cells from bone marrow in hopes it would suppress the severe lung inflammation caused by the virus.
Naranjo recognizes that the doctors saved his life.
Although stem cell treatment, usually reserved for other diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, might end up being another step toward helping coronavirus patients recover, Dr. Osman was quick to say it would not be a “miracle treatment.”
“The miracle treatment will be a vaccine,” she said.