[HN Gopher] First in-utero stem cell therapy for fetal spina bif...
___________________________________________________________________
First in-utero stem cell therapy for fetal spina bifida repair is
safe: study
Author : gmays
Score : 221 points
Date : 2026-03-02 14:54 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (health.ucdavis.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (health.ucdavis.edu)
| vpribish wrote:
| Interesting - they had done surgery before, but not with stem
| cells. 6 babies operated on, results were very good and they are
| recruiting for phase 2
| elric wrote:
| Incredible to see some promising results in stem cell research.
| Hopefully a safe and successful application can give a boost to
| some other areas where stem cells might prove useful (like maybe
| one day we can regrow damaged heart tissue like this).
| SadErn wrote:
| Best news is the stem cells used are from donated placentas. So
| no political footballs, just a true blessing to a child.
| doomslayer999 wrote:
| The notion of "stem cells" are somewhat of a misnomer as modern
| biotechnology is showing us. There are an orchestration of
| probably 1000s of different cell types which can vary in their
| cell states. We don't have enough knowledge of how to use these
| various cell types to influence complex self-organization
| processes like development. But in some cases there are clever
| fixes without understanding the underlying process.
| snyp wrote:
| I did not even know it was possible to operate on a fetus. Its
| insane how far we have come. Very promising results!
| alexpotato wrote:
| The first episode of the Surgeon's Cut [0] on Netflix shows a
| doctor:
|
| - operating in utero
|
| - while the mother is awake
|
| - in an outpatient/doctor's office setting
|
| - to implant a balloon in the upper respiratory tract of a
| fetus with a, I believe, cleft palate so that it's lungs can
| develop normally.
|
| It really is wild what modern medicine can do these days.
|
| 0 - https://www.netflix.com/title/81004466
| trhway wrote:
| The Grey's Anatomy was before that with depicting Prenatal
| Surgery fellowship.
| armadsen wrote:
| Not only is it possible, fetal surgery is more or less standard
| treatment for spina bifida at this point. The news here is
| about the stem cell patch being applied during the surgery. (I
| have a child with spina bifida. We tried to get her into this
| trial, but did not qualify.)
| jillsy wrote:
| My high school hosted the county's special day class for kids
| with severe cognitive and physical disabilities, a majority from
| spina bifida. If this stem cell method can actually repair the
| spinal cord before birth, the quality of life improvement is
| absolutely enormous.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| Does the physical repair also help with the mental developmental
| effects? Children with spinal bifida often develop cognitive
| abilities much slower than children without it.
| armadsen wrote:
| The main goal of physical repair of the defect in utero is
| actually to reduce the incidence of hydrocephalus and hindbrain
| herniation, which are very common in people with Spina Bifida.
| The existing fetal surgery reduces the incidence of
| hydrocephalus from about 80% to about 40%. The improvement in
| leg and bowel/bladder function is actually a secondary benefit.
|
| My understanding is that the hindbrain herniation (aka Chiari
| Malformation Type II) is the main cause of cognitive trouble in
| people with SB. But it's worth noting that it's very far from
| universal in causing that. Most people with SB are basically
| normal cognitively assuming they get good early intervention
| (VP shunt, PT, OT, etc.). Some early cognitive development can
| be slower as a knock on effect of not being able to move around
| as much as a baby and toddler, and thus less able to explore
| the environment, etc.
|
| Source: I'm the parent of a toddler with spina bifida. She's
| completely on track cognitively and with fine motor skills so
| far. She's way behind with gross motor skills due to her
| inability to move her legs very much.
| wincy wrote:
| Another sb parent here, my kid is seven now, she's also on
| track intellectually. We got the decompression surgery for
| the Chiari II a few months after she was born, and the VP
| shunt even earlier than that. Aside from some stammering
| (which her non SB sister also has, so I suspect it's
| hereditary), and weirdness with foods (OT has helped a lot)
| she's totally on track intellectually.
|
| Our daughter was a particularly severe case too, and these
| interventions seem to have helped a lot. For the first four
| years she'd hold her breath every time she was upset, and
| need CPR, but we got her breathing again every time, so we
| don't think there's any brain damage. If we'd missed once,
| maybe I'd be telling a different story now. Thank goodness
| her head grew!
| asah wrote:
| Conditions like SB affect the entire family.
|
| Long ago, my next door neighbor's daughter had severe SB and was
| confined to a wheelchair, slow mental and emotion development,
| etc. Nobody thought she'd live, but in fact got to adulthood. It
| was basically a full-time job for her (single) mom.
| wincy wrote:
| Sadly, the divorce rate is over 50% for parents of spina bifida
| children. My daughter is almost 7 and my wife and I are happy,
| we have a good life and I'm fortunate to have a career that
| lets her stay at home to tend to our daughters multiple monthly
| doctors appointments, and one where I can largely work from
| home to help when she needs carrying (which is often!)
|
| That said, our daughter is a miracle, she's intellectually
| sharp, and we do everything we can to give her all the
| experiences any other bright and outgoing child would have. I
| hold her up so she can play the games she can't reach at Dave
| and Busters, even if my arms get tired. We go on hikes with an
| expensive stroller that's also a bike made for off road biking
| because we read Little House and she wanted to know what
| prairie looked like. We plan on getting an RV to take her to
| national parks.
|
| Her wheelchair tennis coach recently tried an exoskeleton that
| allows him to walk at a research lab in New York, she was
| elated. She asks me when her robot legs are coming. I tell her
| we don't know but robots in every house would certainly help
| that sort of technology move forward. I tell her "they've got
| to test it on adults before kids can get one!"
|
| When she was one, they told us to make plans for the future, to
| get our affairs in order. Three years later the palliative care
| worker who had told us our child wouldn't live past her second
| birthday came to visit us during a hospital visit and talk to
| us, so happy to see a case where they'd all been wrong. I'm so
| happy they were.
| Aboutplants wrote:
| Truly remarkable! Despite the darkness in the world most days,
| news like this lifts my spirits and gives me hope.
| jey wrote:
| What does the stem cell treatment help with beyond the existing
| fetal surgery? Since it's in addition to the usual surgical
| treatment
| nickburns wrote:
| The CuRe Trial is exploring whether stem cells can add
| regenerative power to surgery, potentially improving mobility
| and quality of life. "This is a major step toward
| a new kind of fetal therapy, one that doesn't just repair but
| potentially helps heal and protect the developing spinal cord,"
| said Aijun Wang, co inventor of the placental-derived stem cell
| treatment technology and the study's co-principal investigator
| [ . . . ].
| jey wrote:
| That doesn't really explain anything biologically. Just
| vaguely says "potentially helps heal and protect"
| doomslayer999 wrote:
| China is going to be way ahead of us in biological treatments
| because they are willing to actually remove the red tape and in
| fact encourage scientists to try these sorts of experimental
| treatments. Meanwhile, we have a dinosaur FDA, a bureaucratic
| academia second to only Europeans.
| dekhn wrote:
| What's the plan in China for when one of these expedited
| treatments has a terrible side effect?
|
| The FDA's slowness is about maintaining a low level of risk
| because the reputation cost of a really bad incident is huge.
| doomslayer999 wrote:
| Well, I'm no ethicist, but I don't think they really care.
| They'll catalog the results and try again.
| Aboutplants wrote:
| The good news is that the rest of the world will benefit from
| China's treatment philosophy.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| As the brother of a young, amazing man who we lost due to another
| genetic ailment (CF), whenever I see stories like this, it makes
| me so hopeful for families in the future never having to see a
| loved one deteriorate due to a bad roll of the dice.
|
| Hats off to everyone out there putting in the hours to make the
| lived experience of these folks much better than they would have
| otherwise been. If only we had more of you in the world.
| unglaublich wrote:
| Completely agree, this is why we need to detect bad rolls and
| give people the ability to reroll.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Since this is genetic theraphy, it would be amazing if it
| corrected the bad roll permanently. Being in-uthero, this
| might be the case here.
| willio58 wrote:
| Tangentially related, but it is increasingly obvious that there's
| an ever-growing chasm between these two aspects of medicine in
| the U.S.:
|
| - What's possible for medical professionals to do for certain
| conditions, in large part due to the amazing levels of investment
| into research and implementation.
|
| - How difficult it is for ordinary people to receive care.
| Primarily due to private insurance companies intentionally making
| it more difficult to get care.
|
| Like the fact we're giving stem cell therapy to fetuses
| successfully is amazing, yet any time I go to a doctor's office
| or bloodwork company I hear an elderly person explain to the
| front desk person that they've been on the same insurance for
| decades and only recently started receiving bills they can't
| afford, or listening to the front desk person explain that now
| medicare no longer covers them for a routine thing.
|
| Ideally, we could have both great research _and_ great general
| care in this country. I just don't know if I will ever see that
| day.
| ecshafer wrote:
| I think the largest issue with health care right now is that
| the US is artificially shrinking the supply of Doctors. This is
| due to:
|
| 1. Size of medical school classes not increasing with
| population
|
| 2. US has an artificially small amount of residency slots.
|
| These are largely due to AMA lobbying afaik and bad bills. But
| if we allowed every _qualified_ medical student to enroll, and
| gave a residency slot to every graduate. In a decade we would
| have really shrunk the gap.
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| the largest issue in American health care is private equity
| and middle men raising the cost of everything.
|
| _edit_ if doctor scarcity were the issue then doctors would
| have a lot more leverage in salary negotiations than they do,
| which is to say they don 't have much. because the hiring
| practices are limited by what they can bill, which they have
| no power over.
| doomslayer999 wrote:
| Private Equity is the effect not the cause. We need them to
| create efficiency because of the shenanigans that the AMA
| guild did in limiting doctor supply. Just allow people to
| take an exam to get credentialed, we'd have foreign doctors
| flown in by the hundreds of thousands and care would be as
| cheap as it is in India.
| exhilaration wrote:
| Does that matter though? My impression is that most people
| don't see doctors anymore. Every urgent care visit I've had
| in the past few years has been with a physicians assistant or
| nurse. Same for our pediatrician, I can't remember the last
| time we saw her instead of one of the nurses.
|
| I actually have a routine visit with a specialist at one of
| the top hospital systems in the country in 2 days, and I see
| in the portal I'm seeing a "CRNP, MSN", not a doctor.
| ecshafer wrote:
| This affect is _because_ of the doctor shortage though.
|
| I am in the process of trying to find a primary care
| provider, and I cant find anyone accepting new patients.
|
| Bigger places you basically see the doctor for 2 minutes
| when you actually need one. I went to a ortho surgeon and
| they had a dozen patients "seeing them" at the same time.
| As he just went between rooms and nurses prepped
| everything.
| fleshdaddy wrote:
| I went down a Reddit rabbit hole, a sub called /r/noctor.
| Basically people, mostly doctors, complaining about the
| prevalence of nurse practitioners, PAs practicing
| independently/outside of their scope, etc. The general
| consensus I see there is that the only people benefiting
| from this are private equity firms trying to squeeze more
| profit since they bill the same based on whether you see
| a doctor or an NP. This in turn has an affect where it
| doesn't make sense financially to go through so much
| school and take on so much debt.
| holoduke wrote:
| The US is a country of cowboys. There is literally nothing that
| can be considered fair. The only thing what is left is the
| kindness of it's people. If that detoriates, well...
| slibhb wrote:
| Does that really happen "any time you go to a doctor's office"?
|
| That aside, what if novel therapies like this are linked to the
| fact that US healthcare is expensive? If you make it cheap --
| as in other countries -- there's less incentive for companies
| to invest and you get less research and fewer breakthroughs.
| Also fewer doctors, hospital beds, and more rationing.
|
| In an ideal world, everyone would have exactly the right amount
| of healthcare. But our world isn't ideal, it runs on
| incentives, and it's not clear to me that all the hand-wringing
| over US healthcare will lead to positive changes.
| willio58 wrote:
| > Does that really happen "any time you go to a doctor's
| office"?
|
| Yes. I recently made a resolution to get established with all
| the medical professionals I don't have set up. So a primary
| care, dermatologist, etc. over the past 2 months I've visited
| and had to go back a couple of times. I've literally
| overheard insurance-related issues in all cases. Whether it
| was the person in line before me or just overhearing people
| complaining while I'm in the waiting room.
|
| Just last week I was waiting to get my blood drawn and the
| woman at the front desk, after continued prodding by an
| elderly man frustrated with lack of coverage, out loud said
| "Well, that's insurance in America for you. Go ahead and call
| the number on the back of your insurance card because we
| can't do anything for you." Just deeply disheartening stuff
| to watch a late 80s man not realize after 15 minutes of being
| tossed between automated insurance phone responses that he
| simply won't get the help he needs.
| wincy wrote:
| This is amazing to see. Spina Bifida is tough as it can range
| anywhere from "wheelchair bound and substantial intellectual
| disability" to "has a hard time with potty training", and you
| won't really know until your child has been born.
|
| My daughter is seven now and was born with spina bifida and it's
| been a long journey full of pain, but also joy. The first nine
| months she had breath holding any time she'd get upset (which for
| a baby is all the time) so she was simultaneously the healthiest
| and least healthy baby in the NICU.
|
| She's wheelchair bound, but intellectually very sharp. Getting
| her a spinal shunt a few weeks after birth helped alleviate
| spinal fluid pressure in her brain, although it elevates
| scenarios of "kid has an headache" to "maybe we need to go to the
| ER at 3am in the worst snowstorm of the season", but she's
| extremely sociable and a light to everyone that meets her.
|
| I'm glad work is being done that can mitigate this and improve
| quality of life for these children. She keeps asking me when
| she'll get her robot legs and we tell her they have to test it
| out on adults first to make sure it's safe! Exciting times for
| people with physical disabilities.
| armadsen wrote:
| Thanks for sharing about your daughter. It's good to hear from
| other parents dealing with it. My daughter with spina bifida is
| only 18 months. It's early of course, but so far she's right on
| track cognitively and socially. I expect she'll be in a
| wheelchair full time, but don't know for sure yet. She's also
| just the most joyful, loving, social, happy toddler.
|
| I know what you mean about elevating otherwise normal kid
| illness. She had her first shunt failure in January. It was
| pretty stressful going from "hmm, she's fussy" to surgery
| within less than 24 hours. But she was back to her happy self
| with hours of the surgery too, which was a pretty stark
| indicator of how much the shunt is doing for her.
| trhway wrote:
| It sounds like stem cells come from unrelated people and no
| rejection, etc?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2026-03-02 23:00 UTC)