Children suffering from a chronic liver disease which causes irreparable damage to the organ may get a new lease of life as doctors at AIIMS in New Delhi, India’s premier medical institute, have achieved initial success in their experiments with stem cells.
A team of five doctors at AIIMS tried stem cell treatment for liver repair in children suffering from ‘biliary atresia’ and saw improvement in the physical condition of the children. The team doctors — D K Gupta, Lalit Kumar, Shilpa Sharma, Sidharth Datta Gupta and Sujata Mohanty –were working on this experiment since 2005.
Comments by Dr D K Gupta, Professor and Head of the department, paediatric surgery, AIIMS:
We have tried stem cells in children suffering from biliary atresia. In some of children, these stem cells have regenerated as liver cells resulting in improvement in the physical condition of children. This is a positive beginning as liver is the most complex organ and is made up of large number of different cells. With bone marrow stem cells successfully regenerating into liver cells, we can say we have been able to locate the markers of these liver cells.