- "...some of the advances in the field of light therapy
are 'almost too incredible to believe.'"
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- Hopes of a breakthrough in treating patients with paralysing
back injuries have been raised by a groundbreaking experiment which for
the first time fused together a mammal's broken spinal cord.
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- The technique in which Scottish-designed lasers were
used to repair the spinal cords of paralysed rats ñ restoring the
animals' mobility ñ is likely to be tested on humans next year.
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- Professor Juanita Anders, the lead researcher on the
project at the Uniformed Services University in Maryland, said that some
of the advances in the field of light therapy are "almost too incredible
to believe."
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- Dr Jackson Streeter, whose firm has now licensed the
technology developed by Anders, said: "If we could have lasered Christopher
Reeve in the days immediately after his injuries, he might have been walking
today".
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- At the moment the university researchers are concentrating
on acute injuries ñ those which have just happened ñ as opposed
to chronic conditions. They are confident however that the more complex
treatment of old injuries ñ such as those sustained by Reeve in
1995 ñ is also within their grasp.
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- The US university where the laser work has been carried
out is funded by the US Defence department. It has 900 students, most of
whom wear uniform.
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- The university is on the same heavily-guarded campus
as Bethesda Naval Hospital where President George W Bush undergoes regular
medical examinations.
-
- The laser breakthrough work was carried out by Anders,
her associate Dr Kimberly Byrnes and six other team members. Using lasers
from Thor International, of Kilmartin, Argyll, the team was able to restore
complete mobility to 10 white laboratory rats which had previously had
their spinal cords cut.
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- A group of ten rats, which also had their cords cut but
were not given the light treatment made no recovery.
-
- "The 10 animals chosen received daily doses of light
for about 50 minutes a day for two weeks," said Anders. "Nine
weeks later when they were tested, they had recovered their mobility."
-
- Dr Byrnes will make a presentation on the work, which
earned her a PhD, at a Society for Neuroscience conference in New Orleans
today. The research will also be detailed in a book issued to delegates
at the conference, the world's largest and most influential gathering of
its kind with 28,000 experts expected to attend.
-
- The experiment has its roots in former US President Ronald
Reagan's controversial Star Wars programme. "We were called to a conference
and asked to put up bio projects involving the use of lasers," said
Anders. "My project won funding of $60,000 a year and we were on our
way."
-
- The toughest challenge facing the scientists was how
to establish that lasers were actually penetrating the flesh and reaching
the broken spinal cord.
-
- That was where the lasers produced by the tiny Thor company
came into their own. Thor employs just three people at Kilmartin, designing
and building the instruments, led by Peter Gaskin. Three more staff at
its adminstrative and marketing HQ in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, make up
the workforce.
-
- Managing director James Carroll said: "I don't know
how the Americans heard about us but we have since had lots of flattering
e-mails, praising the stability of our equipment."
-
- Anders said: "The power output from other lasers
tended to be inconsistent and we had to be precise. The Thor machines were
the right ones for the job."
-
- She added that they still did not fully understand the
mechanism, in much the same way that the mechanism of acupuncture is not
understood.
-
- "We believe the light somehow alters the behaviour
of the cells, inhibiting the immune system and allowing the neurons that
make up the spinal cord to regroup," she said.
-
- The professor added that she had faced massive cynicism
over the years regarding her research. She said: "They would ask me:
'Why are you wasting your time on this? You will never get light to penetrate
flesh.'"
-
- Her immediate boss was among the unconvinced, "until
I showed him the changes in the cells of the rats after our experiments.
Now he is completely on side," she said.
-
- The lab team are now working on ways to enable the light
to reach the spinal cord in a human. "So far the results are encouraging,"
said Anders.
-
- The first tests are likely to be carried out by PhotoThera,
a firm in San Diego, California, and will initially concentrate on the
treatment of strokes.
-
- "We believe the technique developed by Dr Anders
will penetrate skull bone and tissue and enable us to reach the site of
a stroke with a laser and minimise brain damage," said the companyís
Dr Streeter. Tests on spinal injuries are also a priority but may be delayed
because the project's neurosurgeon who was working with Streeter is in
Iraq and it is not known when he might return.
-
- "We are tentatively aiming for the beginning of
2005 to commence our research," said Streeter.
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- ©2003 Newsquest (Sunday Herald) Limited. all rights
reserved.
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- http://www.sundayherald.com/37910
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