Imagine you have a trusted team of repair technicians who can fix anything in your house to keep it running smoothly. Now imagine if they were also able to repair and rejuvenate your body from within. That’s what mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) do for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In a recent study, researchers investigated the long-term survival benefits of Neuronata-R® (lenzumestrocel), an autologous MSC product derived from a patient’s own bone marrow. The study compared ALS patients who received lenzumestrocel treatment via intrathecal injection to a control group who did not receive the treatment. The results were remarkable! The patients in the lenzumestrocel group had a significantly higher probability of survival compared to the control group, suggesting that this treatment could be a game-changer in managing ALS. Furthermore, the study found that multiple injections of lenzumestrocel were even more effective in improving survival rates. Importantly, there were no serious adverse drug reactions detected during the safety assessment period. This promising research brings hope and excitement to the ALS community, offering potential new avenues for treatment and improving the quality of life for patients with this devastating disease. For those interested in delving deeper into this groundbreaking study, check out the full article!

ObjectiveNeuronata-R® (lenzumestrocel) is an autologous bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cell (BM-MSC) product, which was conditionally approved by the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (KMFDS, Republic of Korea) in 2013 for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In the present study, we aimed to investigate the long-term survival benefits of treatment with intrathecal lenzumestrocel.MethodsA total of 157 participants who received lenzumestrocel and whose symptom duration was less than 2 years were included in the analysis (BM-MSC group). The survival data of placebo participants from the Pooled-Resource Open-Access ALS Clinical Trials (PROACT) database were used as the external control, and propensity score matching (PSM) was used to reduce confounding biases in baseline characteristics. Adverse events were recorded during the entire follow-up period after the first treatment.ResultsSurvival probability was significantly higher in the BM-MSC group compared to the external control group from the PROACT database (log-rank, p < 0.001). Multivariate Cox proportional hazard analysis showed a significantly lower hazard ratio for death in the BM-MSC group and indicated that multiple injections were more effective. Additionally, there were no serious adverse drug reactions found during the safety assessment, lasting a year after the first administration.ConclusionThe results of the present study showed that lenzumestrocel treatment had a long-term survival benefit in real-world ALS patients.

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