A three-year-old boy who would almost certainly have been born paralysed because of a severe spinal abnormality is able to walk after having ground-breaking stem cell surgery while still in the womb.
An ultrasound scan 20 weeks into pregnancy showed Tobi Maginnis had spina bifida, a disabling condition in which the spinal cord fails to develop properly during pregnancy, leaving part of it growing outside the body.
But he became just the second baby to have the abnormality repaired before he was born using rejuvenating stem cells taken from the placenta.
His mum, Michelle Johnson, told Sky News that he was full of energy.
“He runs, he walks, he jumps, he is all over the place,” she said.
“We expected Tobi to be wheelchair-bound. So to see where he is now, it’s nothing short of a miracle.”
‘Blessed every day’
Tobi was one of six babies in a world-first clinical trial led by the University of California Davis Children’s Hospital.
Around 25 weeks into pregnancy surgeons made a small opening in the mothers’ abdomen and womb. They then placed a patch of stem cells over the babies’ exposed spinal cord and then closed up the incision to allow the tissue to regenerate.
All were born healthy, with no sign of side effects from treatment, according to results published in The Lancet medical journal.
Tobi’s dad, Jeff Maginnis, said: “He’s the second human to go through this surgery with stem cells. So there was a lot of uncertainty, a lot of unknowns.
“We’re just blessed every day when we see how Tobi’s reacted and been affected by this very successful surgery.”
Clinicians ‘cautiously optimistic’
Dr Diana Farmer, who led the study and has pioneered the technique, said the birth of the first baby, a girl called Robbie, had been a surprise.
“The most exciting thing was the baby came out kicking her legs and wiggling her toes, which really exceeded expectations,” she said.
“We expected her, had she not had treatment, to not be able to have that kind of leg movement.”
Dr Farmer said she was “cautiously optimistic”.
“We’re just making sure that there are no unexpected things from having stem cells in the spinal cord of a foetus,” she said.
“This is brand new.”
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Hope for the future
Around 500 babies a year in the UK are born with myelomeningocele, the most severe form of spina bifida.
Developing spinal tissue fails to seal up properly in early pregnancy leaving babies at risk of total paralysis of the legs and problems with bowel and bladder control.
Surgery in the womb to correct the abnormality is increasingly common, but one study showed around half of babies are unable to walk independently.
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The US surgeons hope that using stem cells will improve success rates, helping with walking and potty training.
They’ve started a larger clinical trial of 35 pregnant women. Their babies will be monitored over several years to confirm whether the stem cell technique is effective in the longer term.
