How lung cell transplant can improve breathing

Cells taken from a patient’s own lungs could be used to treat – or even cure – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which affects around 1.4 million people in the UK and leaves many people struggling to breathe prepared.

Research presented last month at the European Respiratory Society International Congress in Milan, Italy, showed that patients could breathe better, walk further and had a better quality of life after cell transplants.

The therapy completely repaired lung damage in two patients with emphysema – a type of COPD that often worsens over time.

The breakthrough treatment involves harvesting a type of cell that can repair damage and then cloning it to make millions of copies.

These are then injected back into the lungs. The technique has been hailed as a potential “game-changer” by the charity Asthma + Lung UK.

Cells taken from a patient’s own lungs could be used to treat – or even cure – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which affects around 1.4 million people in the UK and leaves many people struggling to breathe prepared. In the picture: A doctor with a lung diagram

COPD is an umbrella term for serious respiratory diseases, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Pictured: file photo of the lungs

COPD is an umbrella term for serious respiratory diseases, including emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Due to the inflamed and narrowed airways, patients often have difficulty breathing. The main cause was research into the use of stem cell therapy.

Stem cells have the ability to regenerate or repair almost any body tissue. For example, mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow or umbilical cord blood are used to treat several diseases and have produced mixed results in studies to treat COPD.

The treatment uses progenitor cells, “descendants” of stem cells, which do not mature into any type of tissue, but only transform into the tissue from which they come.

Researchers at Tongji University in Shanghai, China, collected a type of progenitor cell called P63+ – which can regenerate airway tissue – from the lungs of 17 patients with COPD.

They inserted a catheter (a thin tube) with a tiny brush at the end into the patient’s lungs to collect the cells: these were used to grow millions more cells in the laboratory.

Days later, the lab-grown cells were transplanted into the lungs using bronchoscopy – where a tube with a camera on the end is inserted into the airways through the mouth while the patient is under sedation.

Previous research found that P63+ cells can repair COPD-related damage to the walls of alveoli, tiny smoking, but air pollution and genetics are also involved.

Over time, the walls of the airways thicken and produce mucus, making symptoms worse. Coughing is often the first sign and those affected soon develop extreme shortness of breath and wheezing. There is no cure.

Treatment includes medication – often inhaled via a nebulizer – to reduce inflammation and allow more oxygen into the lungs; or exercises to increase lung capacity.

Researchers found that the average diffusion capacity of the lungs (how well gases are exchanged between the lungs and the bloodstream) improved from 30 percent before treatment to 40.3 percent after 24 weeks. Pictured: File photo of a doctor examining the lungs

In recent years, scientists have discovered air sacs in the lungs that play a critical role in gas exchange in the blood supply to the lungs.

Transplanting a patient’s own progenitor cells – rather than those from a donor – also reduces the risk of tissue rejection and serious side effects.

Researchers found that the average diffusion capacity of the lungs (how well gases are exchanged between the lungs and the bloodstream) improved from 30 percent before treatment to 40.3 percent after 24 weeks.

Patients were also able to walk further and their quality of life improved without any serious side effects.

The researchers said that while progenitor cell transplantation could repair mild emphysema – as was the case in the two patients – it was not yet able to cure severe emphysema. Larger studies are now planned.

Omar Usmani, professor of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, said the results were “encouraging” but it was unclear how many of the transplanted cells would remain and actually trigger the growth of healthy new tissue.

“So we don’t know whether some patients’ lungs responded better to the transplant than others.” “That could become clear in future studies,” he said