Global Treatment Evaluation for Parkinson’s Disease

PORTLAND, OREGON. APRIL 14, 2011 – Today, the International Cellular Medicine Society, the global leader in providing best practice standards for cell based medicine, announced the initiation of its first step toward conducting worldwide evaluations of current stem cell treatment offerings.  This step, the creation of a new ICMS Treatment Oversight Committee (TOC), is the first of many that will guide a global effort to bring oversight and transparency to cell based medical treatments.

The TOC will serve as a sub-committee under the ICMS Medical Advisory Board. The committee is tasked with reviewing and evaluating protocols and methodologies being utilized by clinics that are providing stem cell treatments. “Patient safety is our key concern,” said David Audley, Executive Director of the ICMS. “Without oversight and independent evaluation of these treatments, there is no way to distinguish between those that are promising and those that are deceitful and potentially harmful.”

The ICMS has identified Parkinson’s as the first condition to be investigated.  Parkinson’s disease is illustrative of the issues surrounding cell based medicine.  It is a condition that holds tremendous promise for treatment with stem cell, while at the same time poses great potential risks due to a lack of supportive data for these treatments.  The ICMS has identified nearly a dozen clinics around the world currently offering stem cell treatments for this condition.

Comprised of specialists in cell based medicine,  as well as physicians and scientists with significant domain expertise in Parkinson’s disease, the newly formed TOC is tasked with the responsibility of evaluating the data that the ICMS will be collecting from clinics worldwide.  The TOC will generate a report that will provide an evaluation of the current treatments, general guidelines for the applicability of stem cells in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and methodologies for judging the outcomes of these treatments.

“Our mission is to bring transparency to the field,” continued Audley. “No one knows which clinics are peddling false hope, or whether or not there are any viable treatments available for patients. This is only attempt to evaluate what is available, and separate the credible from the malicious.”

The results and learnings from this global treatment evaluation of Parkinson’s disease will serve to form a model for future evaluations of other conditions.