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Translational research patented first experimental treatment against idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
December 26, 2007Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a disease with unknown cause with a very severe prognosis; when detected, it is already in an advanced stage. Patients suffering from it cannot develop with normality pulmonary gas exchange, and have a very reduced quality of life. Because of lack of an effective treatment, they rarely survive 5 years after being diagnosed. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis affects 13 out of 100,000 men and 7 out of 100,000 women, normally over 40 years of age. Researchers from the Biomedical Research Institute of Barcelona CSIC (IIBB-CSIC), a centre developing research in the framework of the Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS), have discovered and patented a method to stop and revert this disease in an animal model. A clinical study will be soon conducted in humans in the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona.
Results of their research work are published in the last issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (176(12):1261-8). This study has had the collaboration of basic researchers, such as Dr. Anna Serrano-Mollar, and Dr. Oriol Bulbena, first and last signatories of the study; and researchers with a clinical background, such as Dr. Antoni Xaubet, from the Unit of Pneumology of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona. This turns this work into a paradigm of translational research promoted in IDIBAPS and through other initiatives such as the Network of Centres of Biomedical Research (CIBERs). This research work has been financed through a contribution from the Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias (FIS) from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III.
Gas exchange is developed in lungs thanks to type 1 pneumocytes in alveoli, cells recovering the inner walls of the alveolar cavity. Occupying the same spaces, there are also type II pneumocytes, precursor cells that repair the damaged alveolar tissue. When idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis appears, this regeneration process cannot be developed correctly and fibrosis advances until respiration is impossible. The technique developed by researchers from the IIBB-CSIC-IDIBAPS consists in a transplantation of type II pneumocytes via intratracheal. In order to monitor correctly the transplanted cells with genetic and fluorescence techniques, sexual chromosomal differences were used. Thus, the disease was induced in female rats, and cells from male rats were transplanted. This is a lowly invasive technique which has permitted to regenerate, for the first time, rat fibrotic alveoli where idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis was induced.
CSIC has patented as a treatment the cell suspension transplanted with this innovative strategy. The world patent will be proved in humans with a clinical study, soon conducted in the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona thanks to the financing of the Fundación Genoma España and CSIC This study will have the participation of 6 recently diagnosed patients who will receive a suspension of type II pneumocytes coming from a dead donor, since these cells cannot be cultured in the laboratory. All this events throw new and hopeful light into basic and clinical research lines. One of the following steps of researchers will be to try to obtain type II pneumocytes from adult stem cells.
IDIBAPS - Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer
CSIC has patented as a treatment the cell suspension transplanted with this innovative strategy. The world patent will be proved in humans with a clinical study, soon conducted in the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona thanks to the financing of the Fundación Genoma España and CSIC This study will have the participation of 6 recently diagnosed patients who will receive a suspension of type II pneumocytes coming from a dead donor, since these cells cannot be cultured in the laboratory. All this events throw new and hopeful light into basic and clinical research lines. One of the following steps of researchers will be to try to obtain type II pneumocytes from adult stem cells.
IDIBAPS - Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer
Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis Current Events and Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis News RSSNote to people with scarred and stiffened lungs: Monitor your sleep before severe fatigue sets in
Family, friends and neighbors remember Lisa Sandler Spaeth as an active mother of two in Potomac, Md., with a lot on the go, juggling her son's baseball games and her daughter's horseback-riding lessons with numerous committee obligations, organizing women's activities at her local synagogue.
Biomarkers identified for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
The first evidence of a distinctive protein signature that could help to transform the diagnosis and improve the monitoring of the devastating lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is being reported by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers in this month's edition of PLoS Medicine, an open-access journal of the Public Library of Science.
Rare Lung Disease Cells Indicate Higher Death Risk
Large numbers of certain cells in the lungs of patients diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis may increase their chance of death, UC researchers have discovered.
Smoking belies milder disease but worse prognosis for IPF patients
Smokers and ex-smokers with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), an untreatable progressive lung disease that usually leads to death within a few years of diagnosis, have a worse prognosis than non-smokers, according to research from London.
Molecular pathway appears crucial in development of pulmonary fibrosis
A study led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers may have found a key mechanism underlying idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a usually fatal lung disease for which transplantation is the only successful treatment.
Gene expression patterns predict rapid decline in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patients
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic lung disease typically characterized by the slow but progressive onset of shortness of breath or cough.
Extra-aggressive form of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis identified
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic and progressive lung disorder from which most patients die within 5 years after diagnosis. The disease is characterized by the insidious onset of dyspnea or cough and usually evolves slowly.
Gene mutations linked to hereditary lung disease
Scientists at Johns Hopkins have identified the genetic culprits that trigger a hereditary form of a fatal lung disease. The findings, published in the March 29, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, may provide new directions in diagnosis and treatment for families that inherit genes for the disease, as well as for those that develop non-inherited forms of the illness.
Proteins may predict lung transplant rejection
Using the latest in high tech tools, researchers have identified three proteins that were highly predictive of chronic lung rejection up to 20 months before the rejection occurred.
Shorter distance on six-minute walk test points up a greater risk of death
For idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients awaiting lung transplantation, a simple walk test can predict mortality rates.
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