Dec 16, 2008 Peace Laguna, Ao Nang, Krabi

Izmir - living with duchenne muscular dystrophy

A picture of Izmir in front of the pond where some of the chalets are located. Our next trip may not be driving any more, unless we are planning to do it like Bob and his family. It is getting to tiring for Izmir and the rest of the kids, or probably more so for the mother. We'll find more interesting vacationing to do for Izmir. His next scheduled stemcell transplantation (and the third) will be on Mar 8, 2008. I hope somewhere along the way, something will reverse his condition. I have been keeping tabs of all latest developments in researches towards finding the cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. It is a devastatingly debilitating genetic disease that renders the muscles necrotic gradually, starting from the waist down and would later move upwards from the waist. So it will affect his pulmonary functions. The stemcell transplantation has somewhat slowed down the necrotic process but is still a long way from reversing it. There is one method done by Prof Zang Xi at the Sun Yut Sen university 5 years ago which may get closer to the solution but the risk is higher because it involves the administration of immuno-suppressive drugs before carrying out the stemcell transplantation. Stemcells here are obtained from fresh cord-blood. The stemcells given will migrate and take-over the marrow functions thereby producing new blood with a different genetic structure thus eliminating the defective genes. But I have to first see the 2 boys who went through the research 5 years ago. If they were successfully treated, I will ask for the procedure and do it on Izmir. the risk is not so much in the stemcells themselves because, contrary to most believes, cord-blood stemcells are without antigens or markers which means that the is no problem of rejection. The risk is in the administration of the immunosuppressive drugs which I believe is 'chemo'. Ideally, I should wait when the risk of the disease outweighs the risk of treatment but that may be too late to reverse the disease. So, I am at a loss here because I cannot find any literature related to this.