WASHINGTON — A family desperate to save a child from a lethal brain disease sought highly experimental injections of fetal stem cells in Russia — injections that triggered tumors in the boy’s brain and spinal cord, Israeli scientists reported Tuesday.
The unidentified Israeli boy has a rare, fatal genetic disease with a tongue-twisting name — ataxia telangiectasia, or A-T. Degeneration of a certain brain region gradually robs these children of movement. Most die in their teens or early 20s.
When he was 9, the family traveled to Russia, to a Moscow clinic that provided injections of neural stem cells from fetuses — immature cells destined to grow into a main type of brain cells. The cells were injected into his brain and spinal cord twice more, at ages 10 and 12.
Tests at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv when the boy was 13 uncovered a growth pushing on his brain stem and a second on his spinal cord. Surgeons removed the spinal cord mass when the boy was 14, in 2006, and they say his general condition has remained stable since then.
A Tel Aviv University team extensively tested the tumor tissue and concluded the fetal cells were the culprits.
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