A boon for carbon monoxide poisoning patients – Biotherapy

With the arrival of winter, the temperature this year is unpredictable, the northern areas of China began to heat earlier, but the current backward housing in rural areas and towns is still the way to heat their own burning coal, resulting in a significant increase in the incidence of carbon monoxide poisoning (commonly known as “coal poisoning”) since the beginning of winter this year. After acute carbon monoxide poisoning, if early application of hyperbaric oxygen treatment, generally can be quickly awake, but if the poisoning time is longer often may lead to the occurrence of delayed encephalopathy after carbon monoxide poisoning. Delayed encephalopathy of carbon monoxide poisoning (DEACMP) refers to the emergence of unresponsiveness, inability to recognize family members, fecal incontinence, disorders of consciousness, high limb tone and other neuropsychiatric symptoms after a period of “pseudo-healing” after recovery from acute carbon monoxide poisoning, with an incidence of up to 10%-30% in patients with moderate to severe CO poisoning. The incidence can be 10%-30% in patients with moderate to severe CO poisoning. It is believed that the main cause is diffuse myelin loss in the white matter of the brain caused by poisoning, and in severe cases, neuronal necrosis and apoptosis, which can cause serious damage to the upper and lower conduction tracts after several days to two months of development, and cannot maintain normal motor sensory function and the function of the reticular upward activation system, thus causing the disease. Traditional treatments are ineffective, and some patients may suffer serious sequelae, be in a vegetative state, or even die. With the progress of medicine and the clinical application of biotherapeutic techniques, it is possible to cure intractable neurological diseases such as carbon monoxide poisoning delayed encephalopathy. Since the beginning of 2010, our neurology department has successfully cured more than 50 patients with carbon monoxide poisoning delayed encephalopathy by applying stem cell technology, with remarkable efficacy. Stem cell is a primitive undifferentiated cell with the ability of self-renewal and multi-directional differentiation. It can be differentiated into specific tissue cells after in vitro targeted induction or induced by the microenvironment of the body, which can achieve the purpose of treating the disease. For patients with delayed-onset encephalopathy, the transplanted stem cells can differentiate into neurons or glial cells under certain conditions, replacing dead brain cells and forming new myelin sheaths to reconstruct nerve conduction bundles, thus repairing neurological functions and improving neuropsychiatric symptoms of patients to achieve the purpose of treating the disease. Stem cell transplantation has been clinically proven to be a new and effective way to treat DEACMP, and it will bring good news to DEACMP patients.