De Soto man credits Thai stem cell treatment with saving his life March 30, 2007

Posted by TheraVitae in : VesCell in the News , trackback

Wash U prof says procedure shows possible benefit

By Sarah AuBuchon
Friday, March 30, 2007 8:29 AM CDT

ANDREW JANSEN PHOTO Bill Bernhardt traveled to Thailand seven months ago to have a procedure with stem cells that regenerates the veins and tissue around the heart.

Even with 126 timepieces, clock collector Bill Bernhardt was still running out of time.

After three heart attacks in the last 15 years that resulted in alleged irreversible damage to blood vessels and tissues in three-quarters of his heart, just seven months ago the 77-year-old De Soto man was told by his cardiologist he had about one year to live.

“My heart looked like a moon just coming up over the horizon,” he said. “Most of my heart was dead.”Bernhardt said his breathing became so labored he couldn’t even perform the simplest of tasks.

“Going to the barn or even across a room was so hard I had to sit down,” he said. “I couldn’t think real good and I was so weak.”

Then Bernhardt’s daughter, Linda Baygents, found Hawaiian crooner Don Ho on the Internet, which is what bought more time for the old clock collector’s ticker. It seems Ho had gone to Bangkok, Thailand, to have a procedure done that used stem cells from his own blood to regenerate the veins and tissues around his heart, which in turn relieved the symptoms of advanced heart disease, Bernhardt said.

“Don Ho had stem cell done at 85 and it was a success,” he said.

Baygents told her father what she had found on the Web about the Bangkok company, TheraVitae.

“She told me I was going to pay a chunk of money and I thought ‘What kind of a scam is this?’” he said.

Bernhardt started researching TheraVitae, where Ho had the procedure, and was encouraged by what he found.

“The company gave me numbers of people across the United States who had it done,” he said. “I called a guy in Texas and he told me he had a great turnaround. Then I called a guy in New Jersey who said he wasn’t doing too well, at least for the first six months. He got pneumonia, but it’s been a year now and he’s doing great. I called different ones around the country and decided to give it a try.”

Bernhardt said he was only the 44th person in the United States to go through the stem cell procedure.

The three-week trip cost Bernhardt about $50,000, and was not covered in any way by his insurance company. The fee included airfare, hotel, hospital stay, food and the procedure.

Bernhardt said he was “treated like a king” in Bangkok, with plush accommodations and plenty of food and hospitality.

“Their hospitals make ours look sick,” he said. “My hospital room had a coffer ceiling with a chandelier, a computer system, a bathtub five people could fit in, an overstuffed couch, a stocked refrigerator and a table and four chairs with a menu on the table eight pages long. Over here you push a button and they yell, ‘What do you want?’ There you push the button and they come in real quietly and politely ask you what you need.”

Washington University Professor of Medicine and Director of Interventional Cardiology John Lasala, M.D., said the procedure involves harvesting blood either from the patient’s main blood stream or bone marrow. Stem cells are then extracted from the blood and re-injected either through surgery or through a main artery in the leg up into the heart.

“There’s no question about it, it exists and it seems to be beneficial,” he said. “We have looked into this and actually have an expert, Emerson Perin, from the Texas Heart Institute coming up next month to discuss stem cell therapy.”

Lasala said there are two types of stem cell therapies, one that derives new blood vessels around the heart and one that grows new heart cells. He said the people who would benefit from new cells are those with heart damage, while people with severe chest pain and heart attack victims would benefit from new blood vessels, which would improve the blood flow to the heart.

“This protocol is nice because it allows four or five days after a heart attack before you re-inject the cells,” he said. “You’ve got time to get the usual strand of care in for the patient.”

There is some risk to the procedure, Lasala said, as the stem cells could “irritate” the heart and cause an abnormal heart rhythm.

“While we can’t endorse everyone running over to Bangkok, the technique is very enticing,” he said, “and clearly warrants more investigation in a scientific environment.”

Bernhardt said he had a slight bout with pneumonia around Christmas, but with each month he feels stronger and healthier.

“I can jog now,” he said.

Bernhardt said he didn’t bring a clock back from Bangkok, but he did bring back something more valuable–more time to spend with his wife Marge and his family.

For more information about TheraVitae, visit the Web site at , or call Bernhardt at 636-586-6796.