Epilepsy
Case analysis for epilepsy
By: Like Wu, Xiaojuan Wang, Bo Cheng, Susan Chu，Xinrui Xi and Xiang Wang
Wu Medical Center
The patient is a 3 years old boy. He had epileptic attack at the age of 3 months. The symptoms are numbness, spasmodic muscular movement on face and right canthus, sometimes he had serious attack, he becomes unconscious, rigidity of extremities, and clonic seizure; the period could last for 15 minutes. His organs such as endocrine and metabolic and all other organs functions were normal. The brain MRI show part of the brain mantle was hypogenetic, electroencephalograms show epileptic discharge, so he was diagnosed as idiopathic epilepsy. He changed the antiepileptic medications several times and takes sodium valproate and urobanyl now. But he still had 3-4 times mini-seizures; each time would last for few seconds. His spirit was bad, he always slept for 15 hours every day. He had physical and mental stunting. He also developed language problem. He was not able to speak problem. It was hard for him to control his head. He could neither hold objects with both hands, nor turn over, sit-up, crawl or walk. He ate semi-liquid diet. He does not have family hereditary disease. Examination: stable vitals on everything. There were no yellow stains on his skin. His heart, lungs, liver and spleen were normal. His spirit was bad but he was alert. He had language barrier; he could only make sounds or smile to express his feelings. He was able to differentiate different people, sounds or environments. He had bad understanding. He could do simple communications with familiar face without eye connect, the diameter of both pupils was 2.5mm, and both of his eyes were sensitive to light. It was hard for him to control his head when he was sitting. The muscle power of his trunk was bad. He could not turn over his body by himself or keep a sitting position. Both hands could catch objects but not hold up or raise his hands. Both lower limbs had kicking movement. He could stand up with someone’s help but he was not able to walk. The muscle power of his four limbs was lower than normal. The tendon reflex was lower, and his pathological sign was negative. Diagnosis: idiopathic epilepsy.
Treatment target: increase the number of normal neural stem cells (NSCs) in the brain, initiate neural development, and fix and regenerate the nerves. Increase the brain functions, improve the patient’s cognitive function and motor function.
Treatment procedure and results: We gave the patient 4 times neural stem cells (NSCs) and 4 times mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) implantation treatment. The stem cells were activated in the patient’s body to fix the damaged nerves. Together with nourishment of the neurons, improve circulation, regular the immune, daily rehabilitation training was incorporated. After the treatment, his attack was less than before, only 1 or 2 attack a month. His spirit was better, he slept 10-12 hours a day. He had more reactions. His staring and swallowing became better. He could eat solid food. The movement of his four limbs was improved. He could raise his hands over his head. His lower limbs could kick powerful. The power of his trunk was better, so he could turn over, hold up his body in knee position and sit up partly from supine position all by himself. The tendon reflex of four limbs was normal. He took less medicine and the serum concentration was normal.
Case analysis: Epilepsy is a kind of chronic disease result from over-discharge of cerebral neurons, which affects the brain function. The pathogens are complicated and diversified, including genetic factor, brain diseases, general disease and systemic disease, etc. Long-term repeated attack can lead to brain nerves damage and error of metabolism. The patient’s mind, body and intelligence would be damaged. This patient has typical epilepsy, there is no specific focus of infection in his head. His disease was not controlled very well after the regular medical treatment, and the patient was at the stage of growth spurt. Long-term’s attacks made the paradoxical discharge from focus of infection became abnormal electrochemistry environment, the cortex in synapsis and cell membrane would develop abnormal forever, so the patient had not only attacks, but also bad development of spirit, intelligence and motor function. The regular treatment methods are medicines, operations and biotherapies. The doctors would use the medicines to treat it at first, and this method is useful to most of patients. But some patients with complex conditions like this boy, his condition was not controlled by medicines and the unfavourable reactions of these medicines were harmful to him. Some organs were damaged. The operation is only useful to secondary epilepsy, because this kind of epilepsy has focus of infection in brain (such as space occupying lesion: brain tumor, brain abscess, hematoma and scar tissue, etc.).The part which is removed is circumscribed, and the most of the operating parts are in the functional areas, so the operation may result in motor functional problems, language problems or intracranial hematoma. This patient’s brain mantle didn’t develop well. The imperfectly developed brain tissue might have been the cause of epilepsy, but it was too widespread to be removed, and the patient’s brain function would be influenced if the damaged brain tissue forcibly removed. In all, the patient could not have the operation.
Biotherapy is a good treatment method for all kinds of epilepsy. The treatment target is to increase the number of inhibitory neuron and intermediary neuron in the brain, balance the neurotransmitter transmission, fix the nerve damage and anomalous of metabolism resulted from long-term paradoxical discharge in brain and increase the number of normal nerve cells. This kind of treatment needs serious clinical control technology. The implanted NSCs are able to differentiate into nerve cells, horizontal cell and microglia. With the medical control system, the differentiated neurons can be transferred to the neurons which can secrete inhibitory neurotransmitter, regular the neurons’ function which are paradoxically discharging. At the same time, some of the differentiated intermediary neuron can transfer the normal nerve impulse, initiate the normal cells growth again. This kind of treatment method can make the patient’s spirit and intelligence become better, release him of his attacks and degree. At the end, the disease would be halted.
