Stem Cells may Beat Riluzole in Treatment of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, or simply ALS, is a neurodegenerative disease that slowly kills its victims within a few years after diagnosis. This is a complex disease in which every motor neuron in the body is killed over a relatively short time period within 3 years or so, thus killing the victim. This disease can be classified into three main categories based on the neurological levels affected bulbar onset, cervical onset, and lumbar onset (Mitchell and Borasio). Bulbar onset can further be divided into two subcategories upper motor neuron (UMN) bulbar onset, and lower motor neuron (LMN) bulbar onset. The former involves loss of speech due to spastic dysarthia and the latter involves wasting of tongue tissue accompanied with flaccid dysarthia and dysphagia (Kiernan et al.,). Bulbar onset occurs first about one third of the time (Gordon). Cervical onset involves loss of function in upper limbs and can include both upper motor neurons and lower motor neurons. In contrast, lumbar onset involves weakening of lower limbs, including feet (Mitchell and Borasio). Rilutek was first FDA approved to treat ALS almost a decade ago. Since then, several studies have shown that Rilutek may not be so effective at prolonging life in patients with ALS. In recent years, stem cells have become a subject of great debate among the scientific community due to their implications in curing diseases like ALS. Stem cells have been shown in clinical trials to prolong life in patients in ALS even more than Rilutek has. They have also shown to control glutamate uptake in transgenic mice with the SOD1 gene, which is promising for new treatments in ALS patients. Although Rilutek has also shown to control glutamate uptake, stem cells may have a better effect.