5 big strides to fight lung disease in our tiniest patients

Public release date: 4-Dec-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Paddy Moore padmoore@ohri.ca 613-737-8899 x73687 Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

December, 4, 2012 Ottawa For Ottawa scientist and neonatologist Dr. Bernard Thbaud, even a major paper that answers five significant questions still doesn't seem quite enough in his determined path to get his laboratory breakthrough into the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Dr. Thbaud's proposed therapy would use stem cells from umbilical cords to treat a disease previously thought to be untreatable bronchopulmonary dysplasia, or BPD.

"BPD is a lung disease described 45 years ago in which we have made zero progress. And now, with these cord-derived stem cells there is a true potential for a major breakthrough," says Dr. Thbaud, a senior scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and CHEO Research Institute, a neonatologist at CHEO and The Ottawa Hospital, and a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa.

"I am confident that we have the talent and the tools here at CHEO and OHRI to find a treatment for BPD. These findings published today are helping us get there," continues Thbaud.

BPD affects approximately 10,000 very premature newborns in Canada and the U.S. every year. The lungs of these infants are not developed enough to sustain them, so they must receive oxygen through a breathing machine. However, this combination of mechanical ventilation and oxygen damages the lungs and stops their development. In addition, longer stays in the NICU for these extremely premature babies affect the normal development of other parts of the body, including the retina, the kidneys and the brain.

Today in the journal Thorax, Dr. Thbaud's team provides significant findings in experiments with newborn rats given oxygen. The lung development of a newborn rat mimics that of a premature baby born at 24 weeks. The five major findings reported in Thorax are:

Within two years, Dr. Thbaud wants to be talking about a pilot study with 20 human patients showing that this stem-cell therapy is feasible and safe, and in four years he wants to embark on a randomized control trial. These are all steps in his profound desire to help the babies he sees in the NICU with BPD, and he is confident a treatment will be developed.

"It's going to happen here in Ottawa, but for babies worldwide," says Dr. Thbaud.

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5 big strides to fight lung disease in our tiniest patients