Dr. Richard Burt, a professor of medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, has conducted extensive research on stem cells. Dr. Richard Burt’s research has culminated in published articles on the topic of using stem cells to treat Crohn’s disease in the academic journals Gastroenterology (2005), Blood (2010), Bone Marrow Transplant (2013) JAMA (2016), Lancet Gastroenterology and Hematology (2017), and BioMed Central (2017)..
Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory disease affecting the bowels due to chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. The disease can be debilitating for sufferers. It is treated through diet, medications, and in a worst-case scenario, surgery.
Dr Burt published a milestone study of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for the treatment of Crohn's disease in 2010, and subsequently, the European group of Autoimmune Diseases of EBMT organized a randomized clinical trial, termed autologous stem cell transplantation in Crohn (ASTIC) to compare HSCT effect with the standard treatment of the disease. The ASTIC group published an assessment of patients undergoing HSCT using traditional criteria. Clinical remission and improvement of clinical parameters and complete healing of the mucosa occurred in 50% of patients who underwent HSCT. Also, the patient-reported outcomes (PRO2) and the patients' quality of life (QOL) significantly improved. The study concluded that HSCT, when evaluated according to the traditional prescription drug study criteria, resulted in significant endoscopic mucosal healing and QOL benefits for the patients.
The future of HSCT for CD is to continue to tweek the regimen to make it safer and to achieve even longer and more duable results without evidence of disease, that is clinical remission on no drug therapy, and imaging, endoscopic, and histologic remission. Recently data from patients undergoing allogeneic transplantation in Chicago were presented in Berlin and Paris, and after five years of follow-up, patients had no evidence of disease with clinical, imaging, endoscopic, and histologic remission despite no signs of chimerism
Crohn's disease is currently the third most common autoimmune disease undergoing HSCT, according to the EBMT Registry
Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory disease affecting the bowels due to chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. The disease can be debilitating for sufferers. It is treated through diet, medications, and in a worst-case scenario, surgery.
Dr Burt published a milestone study of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for the treatment of Crohn's disease in 2010, and subsequently, the European group of Autoimmune Diseases of EBMT organized a randomized clinical trial, termed autologous stem cell transplantation in Crohn (ASTIC) to compare HSCT effect with the standard treatment of the disease. The ASTIC group published an assessment of patients undergoing HSCT using traditional criteria. Clinical remission and improvement of clinical parameters and complete healing of the mucosa occurred in 50% of patients who underwent HSCT. Also, the patient-reported outcomes (PRO2) and the patients' quality of life (QOL) significantly improved. The study concluded that HSCT, when evaluated according to the traditional prescription drug study criteria, resulted in significant endoscopic mucosal healing and QOL benefits for the patients.
The future of HSCT for CD is to continue to tweek the regimen to make it safer and to achieve even longer and more duable results without evidence of disease, that is clinical remission on no drug therapy, and imaging, endoscopic, and histologic remission. Recently data from patients undergoing allogeneic transplantation in Chicago were presented in Berlin and Paris, and after five years of follow-up, patients had no evidence of disease with clinical, imaging, endoscopic, and histologic remission despite no signs of chimerism
Crohn's disease is currently the third most common autoimmune disease undergoing HSCT, according to the EBMT Registry
