My patient starts our visit saying, “I’ve paid thousands for my stem cell therapy after my stroke but it’s not working, why?”
I responded, “Where did you get stem cell therapy?”
“At a strip mall in my neighborhood. I wanted to treat my stroke so my brain would grow back.”
I grew quiet and then said to her, “There really is no FDA approved stem cell therapy for what you are asking and I wouldn’t continue with it.”
With tears rolling down her cheeks she said, “But they promised it would work.”
My patient’s experience is very commonplace and here in Arizona where stem cell clinics are springing up everywhere.
According to a recent publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the number of U.S. clinics offering unproven stem cell therapies has doubled since 2014 with 100 new stem cell business websites last year alone. It is estimated that today there are at least 700 clinics open for business.
The problem is there’s no evidence that any of this works.
Stem cells are cells that can literally become any human cell in the body. Therefore for certain organs, such as the brain, heart, kidney or liver that do not regenerate themselves after injury such as a stroke, the idea of having an organ regrow itself would be life changing. For certain blood cancers such as lymphoma and leukemia, stem cell therapy is a standard of care.
However, for almost all other conditions there is considerable promise and hope, but little else.
The big problem is there is no policing of what people call “stem cell therapy” and, sadly, some people have been injured. Three patients in Florida with macular degeneration were treated with stem cell therapy and all developed visual loss in both eyes immediately. A smallpox vaccine — something only available to the military because of potential bioterrorism concerns — was confiscated when one stem cell treatment center in Rancho Mirage, California, tried to create an unapproved stem cell cancer treatment. Now that’s scary.
At this present time, there is no evidence to either support or refute the use of stem cells. At many clinics now popping up in strip malls, stem cell therapy is offered for arthritis to improve your joints. But what’s being given in that treatment is an unknown. In some cases, it’s just simply some fat cells that are called stem cells that are being provided along with a shot of steroid that may make you feel better but does nothing else at a ridiculous cost.
Getting back to my patient she spent several thousand dollars and has nothing to show for it. Fortunately, she was not medically harmed.
As I told her, “stem cell therapy is like the wild, wild west. There are no rules.”
And she responded, “Where’s the town sheriff when you really need one?”