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Meningitis
■ Meningococcal disease is a bacterial infection that can cause meningitis.
■ The MCV4 vaccine targets four of the five strains of meningoccal diseases.
■ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend this vaccine for those ages 11-55, especially 11- to 18-year-olds.
■ Teens and young adults are more likely than other groups to get the disease.
■ An older vaccine is also available and recommended for certain children ages 2-10 who are at high risk of meningococcal diseases.
■ Every year the U.S. has 1,400 to 2,800 cases of meningococcal disease.
■ Symptoms include high fever, headache, stiff neck and a dark purple rash.
■ The disease is spread among people in close contact, such as those living in college dorms.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Adult stem cell therapy
■ Cells are extracted from the patient's blood.
■ Since the patient's own blood is used, there is no possibility of the body rejecting the stem cells.
■ The few naturally occurring stem cells are cultivated into millions of "super cells."
■ The cells are reinjected into the patient's heart or blood vessels.
■ It takes two to six months to see results.
■
■ Diseases treated include congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, ischemic heart disease, cardiomyopathy and peripheral artery disease.
Online: Regenocyte.com
■ Meningococcal disease is a bacterial infection that can cause meningitis.
■ The MCV4 vaccine targets four of the five strains of meningoccal diseases.
■ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend this vaccine for those ages 11-55, especially 11- to 18-year-olds.
■ Teens and young adults are more likely than other groups to get the disease.
■ An older vaccine is also available and recommended for certain children ages 2-10 who are at high risk of meningococcal diseases.
■ Every year the U.S. has 1,400 to 2,800 cases of meningococcal disease.
■ Symptoms include high fever, headache, stiff neck and a dark purple rash.
■ The disease is spread among people in close contact, such as those living in college dorms.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Adult stem cell therapy
■ Cells are extracted from the patient's blood.
■ Since the patient's own blood is used, there is no possibility of the body rejecting the stem cells.
■ The few naturally occurring stem cells are cultivated into millions of "super cells."
■ The cells are reinjected into the patient's heart or blood vessels.
■ It takes two to six months to see results.
■
■ Diseases treated include congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, ischemic heart disease, cardiomyopathy and peripheral artery disease.
Online: Regenocyte.com
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In March, Andre Lampkin, 20, was facing the amputation of his legs and arms.
But an experimental treatment using his own stem cells to stimulate tissue growth is giving the former L.D. Bell High School wide receiver hope after meningitis damaged his extremities.Two weeks after treatment, the soles of his feet and palms of his hands are softening, his circulation has improved, and his right foot is moving, said Dr. Zannos Grekos, the cardiologist who is treating Lampkin, now at the hospital in Naples, Fla., where Grekos is based."It looks like we have already saved his legs and arms," Grekos said. "Now we're hoping to save most of each foot and his hands."Lampkin's medical odyssey has taken him from his home in Bedford to a hospital in an island country for a treatment the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved.Sudden onset
It began when Lampkin, a freshman attending Cisco Junior College on an athletic scholarship, returned home for spring break. That Friday he was fine. But on Saturday while visiting friends, he complained of having a headache and went to bed early, said Michelle Gideon, Lampkin's godmother. The next morning -- Easter Sunday -- she found him lying on a bedroom floor."One side of his face looked totally normal, but the other side was swollen and looked like he had chickenpox," she recalled.Lampkin was rushed to Harris Methodist H.E.B. Hospital, where he was treated for bacterial meningitis. Those chickenpoxlike spots were signs of clots cutting off blood flow.Antibiotics helped stabilize Lampkin, who was transferred to Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.There doctors planned to amputate his legs at the knees and his arms at the elbows.But an aunt searched the Internet for other treatments and found Grekos, who was using adult stem cells to stimulate tissue regrowth, improve circulation and reduce diabetic amputation rates. Grekos, director of cardiology and vascular disease at Regenocyte Therapeutic in Florida, flew to Dallas to escort Lampkin and his mother to the facility."If there was any hope of helping this young man we wanted to offer it," he said.Once Lampkin was in Florida, his blood was drawn and sent to a lab in Israel.Although it was Passover and the lab staffers were on vacation, they agreed to process the blood, Grekos said. The cells were then replicated into millions of super cells that Grekos' company has branded "Renocytes." The cells can become almost any type of new cell or tissue, he said.
Experimental treatment
Luis Parada, director of developmental biology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, studies stem cell research, which he considers still in its infancy. For that reason, Parada urged caution for anyone considering such experimental treatment.Because the FDA has not approved the treatment, such procedures must be performed abroad."The whole basis for the FDA is to ensure when someone claims a therapy has success it is based on science," Parada said.
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