Boy, 6, Survives Experimental Brain Surgery to Implant Stem Cells

SAN JOSE, Calif. _ The first child to undergo experimental brain surgery with a Silicon Valley company's proposed stem-cell treatment has recovered enough from the operation last month to return home, according to an official at the Oregon hospital where the procedure was done.
The child _ 6-year-old Daniel Kerner of Orange County, Calif. _ was the first of several children expected to have stem cells transplanted into their heads in hopes of minimizing the deadly effects of Batten disease (NEURONAL CEROID LIPOFUSCINOSIS).
The rare and as-yet incurable genetic malady frequently causes its mostly young victims to suffer seizures and blindness before killing them.
The boy underwent the operation Nov. 14 at Oregon Health & Science University's Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland using a fetal neural stem-cell product developed by StemCells of Palo Alto, Calif.
Doctors involved with the procedure and executives at StemCells have stressed that it will take months to determine if the treatment provides any benefit.
But hospital spokeswoman Tamara Hargens said the boy appears to have suffered no lingering effects from the operation and is now well enough to return home this week with his parents.
"Everything has gone as expected so far," Hargens said. "The surgery went without complication and Daniel is recovering."
Hargens added that the boy has been staying with his parents in Portland while undergoing outpatient checkups. But she declined to say when he was released from the hospital.
Daniel's operation is the first ever done in people with fetal stem cells. Those cells are taken from fetuses, which is a later stage of development than the embryos than can also provide stem cells. Because the fetal and embryonic tissue comes from abortions, research on stem cells has been controversial.
StemCells initially asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2004 for permission to conduct the unprecedented test on children. After asking the company for more information about how the surgery would be done and whether it risked causing cancer, the federal agency gave its permission on Oct. 20, 2005.
Batten disease is caused by a defective gene that fails to create an enzyme the brain needs to dispose of cellular waste. The waste piles up and kills healthy cells until the patient dies. Most victims die before they reach their teens.
By injecting fetal stem cells into the brains of Daniel and the other children who are expected to participate in the study, researchers hope the cells will help the brains produce the missing enzyme.

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