Stroke: Treatment may be 'next frontier'

The Houston Chronicle reports that doctors from the University of Texas Medical School have launched the nation's first experimental trial to treat stroke patients with their own stem cells.

This new treatment is directed at patients who were not able to receive a tissue plasminogen activator or who did not respond to the treatment, which is reported as the only treatment available now for stroke victims.

Neurologist and Professor Sean Savitz reported that the trial's first patient was treated on March 25, 2009 and is doing well. "We're just at the beginning, but this could be an exciting new area of therapeutic intervention for stroke," said the doctor, adding, "It could be the next frontier."