gms | German Medical Science

47. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft der Plastischen, Rekonstruktiven und Ästhetischen Chirurgen (DGPRÄC), 21. Jahrestagung der Vereinigung der Deutschen Ästhetisch-Plastischen Chirurgen (VDÄPC)

08.09. - 10.09.2016, Kassel

Progress on Olfactory Ensheathing Cells and their potential use of for clinical studies in peripheral nerve repair

Aktuelle Entwicklungen und Fortschritte in der klinischen Anwendung von Olfactory Ensheathing Cells für die periphere Nervenregeneration

Meeting Abstract

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  • presenting/speaker Christine Radtke - Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Plastische, Ästhetische, Hand- und Wiederherstellungschirurgie, Hannover, Deutschland; Yale University, School of Medicine, Neuroscience Research Center, New Haven, Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika
  • Jeffery D. Kocsis - Yale University, School of Medicine, Neuroscience Research Center, New Haven, Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika
  • Peter M. Vogt - Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Plastische, Ästhetische, Hand- und Wiederherstellungschirurgie, Hannover, Deutschland

Deutsche Gesellschaft der Plastischen, Rekonstruktiven und Ästhetischen Chirurgen. Vereinigung der Deutschen Ästhetisch-Plastischen Chirurgen. 47. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft der Plastischen, Rekonstruktiven und Ästhetischen Chirurgen (DGPRÄC), 21. Jahrestagung der Vereinigung der Deutschen Ästhetisch-Plastischen Chirurgen (VDÄPC). Kassel, 08.-10.09.2016. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2016. Doc050

doi: 10.3205/16dgpraec050, urn:nbn:de:0183-16dgpraec0503

Published: September 27, 2016

© 2016 Radtke et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. See license information at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.


Outline

Text

A number of pilot clinical studies have been carried out using Olfactory Ensheathing Cells (OECs) for transplantation into patients with central nervous injury. These studies have generally indicated safety, but a number of factors are being addressed including cell derivation sources, characterization and purity of the transplanted cells and methods for evaluation of efficacy. To date OEC transplant studies in human patients with peripheral nerve injury have not been carried out. Given the safety using OECs in spinal cord injury patients and the efficacy of OECs in experimental models of peripheral nerve repair, a clinical study using OECs for nerve repair should be considered. As with spinal cord injury harvesting of cells will be a critical component in the design of the clinical studies.

While methods are available to harvest OECs from nasal mucosa by biopsy the cell harvest of OEC from bulbar biopsies of the olfactory bulb is approximately 50%, in contrast to 5% after mucosa biopsy. This again emphasizes the need to study nerve repair in experimental nerve injury models using human mucosal derived OECs. OECs are known to secrete levels of growth factors (e.g. BDNF, NGF, and NT-3) which have a significant effect in enhancing nerve regeneration. Moreover, possible anti-inflammatory and vessel promoting influences could also help in the promotion of nerve repair. Thus, OECs may have a multitude of therapeutic effects that could contribute to improved functional recovery after nerve injury. In summary, the results from a large body of work indicate that OECs can importantly influence neural repair after peripheral nerve injury. Nerve regeneration can be facilitated, regenerated axons can be remyelinated by them and importantly they can lead to improved functional outcome when used in conjunction with traditional nerve repair methods. Aside from the direct use of OECs for clinical transplantation studies, knowledge of the mechanism by which they promote regeneration and neural repair could lead to the development of novel pharmacological approaches to enhance nerve repair.