An Ottawa man has survived a common but deadly infection, after taking part in an experimental stem cell trial at the Ottawa Hospital. It's the world's first clinical trial of this treatment in humans and so far, the results are promising. The infection is called sepsis; a massive infection that just killed actress Patty Duke on Tuesday. Treatment for sepsis has not changed much over the years and neither has the survival rate.
So, this new therapy brings new hope.
To look at 73-year-old Charles Berniqué today, you would never suspect he was close to death last June after a sudden bout of food poisoning.
“The pressure got so bad that I wanted to vomit,” says Berniqué, “and when I did, I ruptured my esophagus.”
That resulted in septic shock. A massive infection ravaged his body, shutting down his organs.
“I was very close to death,” he adds.
He was in coma for 4 days, on hydration and antibiotics; the only methods currently to treat septic shock until perhaps now.
Charles' wife Maureen was approached about an experimental treatment for sepsis being tried right at the Ottawa Hospital, the first clinical trial in humans in the world.
“At first I was in shock,” says Maureen, “I didn't know what to respond to that.”
After discussing it with the rest of the family, Maureen gave doctors the green light to go ahead with the experimental treatment. Thirty million special stem cells called mesenchymal cells, taken from the bone marrow of healthy donors, were injected into Charles. These cells, in animals, have shown a remarkable ability to a reduce inflammation; even get rid of the bugs causing the infection.
“If this gave a similar effect as seen in animals or even gave a more modest effect, this would be a game changer,” says Dr. Duncan Stewart, the Executive Vice-President of Research and a senior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital, “because it would allow us to do something that would improve the outcome in patients once they develop this problem.”
Sepsis is a fairly common infection affecting more than 100,000 Canadians each year. Septic shock can lead to organ failure, loss of limbs and death. Twenty to forty percent of patients do not survive; people like actress Patty Duke who died just days ago. Improving that survival rate has been critical for researchers around the world.
“If we reduce the death rate by 3% or 4%,” says Dr. Lauralyn McIntyre, an intensive care physician and senior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital, “we are just chunking away at that mortality rate and improving the function of our patients by 25%, that's a major stride in the right direction.”
The Ottawa Hospital has now recruited 6 patients into this trial, all of whom had sepsis, with Charles Berniqué being one of them. What the outcome was for those other patients, they are not yet divulging but researchers do believe this treatment has promising results. Maureen Berniqué fervently believes it saved her husband’s life.
"He’s great,” she says, with a giggle, “we go dancing, we have fun, we do bicycles. We do everything again.”
Charles Berniqué spent 3 months in hospital, slowly recovering. He is now at home, back at work and feeling great.
“It's just a miracle I came out of it that way I have,” he says.
This is still in the early, experimental stage. The next step is a much bigger study involving several centres across Canada.
