A woman with terminal bone marrow failure was saved at the Hadassah Medical Center with placental stem cell therapy, marking the second successful treatment of a patient with this life-threatening medical condition in three months.
This most recent case involved a woman who had lymphoma and failed to respond to both chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants. When Pluristem Therapeutics’ PLX cells were injected intramuscularly, her clinical condition and blood count improved—so much so that she has been released from the hospital.
Before the woman received the PLX cells, her red and white blood cell counts were low and she was highly susceptible to infections. “This is a real breakthrough,” said Prof. Reuven Or, Director of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cancer Immunology at Hadassah. When the autologous bone marrow transplants engrafted poorly, he related, “as a last resort,” they applied to treat her with PLX cells under the “compassionate use protocol.” The treatment with PLX, he reports, “has saved her life and can certainly be classified as a medical miracle.”