TORONTO, Feb. 11 (UPI) -- Increasing numbers of Canadians are traveling to countries for stem cell treatments that are expensive and unproven, which may be risky, researchers said.
Dominique McMahon, a postdoctoral fellow at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, said stem cell treatments are being marketed via the Internet in China, India, Mexico, Panama, Thailand and Ukraine. In China alone, there are more than 200 hospitals offering stem cell therapies.
One Canadian couple traveled to Shenyang, China, in 2007 for multiple system atrophy. For $30,000, along with travel and living expenses for her and husband, the woman received four weeks of treatment consisting of six stem cell injections as well as acupuncture and physiotherapy five to six times per week.
The facility offers to arrange treatment for a wide variety of conditions, including ataxia, brain injury, cerebral palsy, diabetic foot disease, lower limb ischemia, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, spinal cord injury and optic nerve damage, McMahon said.
The Stem Cell Network said stem cells are used effectively in Canada only for bone marrow transplants, skin grafting and treating blood diseases, McMahon added.
"In some cases, it is not clear what is being injected," McMahon said in a statement. "Some facilities use a patient's own stem cells, while others use embryonic or fetal cells, which can create a risk of rejection. There's no proof of safety and efficacy. The quality of facilities varies. The protocols are poorly documented and not available to the patients. Even in the best-case scenarios, the doctor doesn't know whether it's safe or efficacious because of a lack of data."
The findings were published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.