|
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Wednesday, 30 November 2005 10:26 | | BNN: British Nursing News Online · www.bnn-online.co.uk
|
|
|
Surgeons are to begin performing operations on young people who have suffered nerve damaged using a revolutionary technology that could cure the patient of paralyses, The Guardian has reported.
The operations will use a technique developed by neuroscientist Geoffrey Raisman, of University College London, who discovered 20 years ago that cells from the lining of the nose could regenerate themselves. It is hoped that these cells can be used to bridge across severed nerves, allowing the fibres to knit back together.
The initial operations will not cure people with the most severe paralyses, but could heal patients whose nerves have been damaged because their arm has been pulled out of the spinal cord – a common motorcycling injury which has been inoperable until now.
"I don't know that it will work, but I think it will work," Prof Raisman said yesterday. "If you forced me to bet, I would bet on it working.
"I have been patient. I didn't jump in the dark. I have grown through the research all these years. It was in 1985 I discovered the cells. It has taken 20 years before I felt we had the technology to apply this to people.
"After spending this amount of time developing it, I'm not in a hurry. This is not the final stage, but it is the crucial stage of the research.
"If this works well, it opens the door to an enormous area. This is a door which has never been opened: to repair injuries to the brain and spinal cord caused by the disconnection of nerve fibres.
"The best possible outcome will be that these patients will get a return of sensation to the arm and a reduction of the pain associated with that injury."
If successful, the procedure could be refined to treat people in wheelchairs and, potentially, other nerve injuries such as blindness and deafness.
"This is proof of principle," Prof Raisman said. "If it is proved, I think there will be so much publicity we will be lucky to stay in the field. It will be like a tidal wave. But the only race I'm in is the human race. This has got an enormous future but I don't have the illusion I'm going to see it all the way through."
|
|
| -
0 comments on this story
|
|
|
Home Top Disclaimer Site
Credits
Nursing Jobs | Just for Nurses | Nursing Agencies List | Charles Bloe Training
Nursing Portal | Nursing Events | Brutish Nursing | British Nursing Websites
Website Development and SEO Services
|
|
|
