Pontevedra hospital team pioneers stem cell treatment for Crohn's disease
Sunday, December 1, 2019 @ 5:14 PM
A team of doctors at the Montecelo hospital in Pontevedra have carried out the first stem cell surgery in Spain to treat patients with Crohn's disease combined with complex perianal fistula.
Crohn's disease affects over a million people in the European Union, and perianal fistulas are one of the most debilitating complications of the disease. It is estimated that for every 100,000 inhabitants of Galicia there are 250 people suffering from Crohn's disease.
The health authorities in Pontevedra have proudly announced the "leading role" their staff have assumed in this field and emphasised the importance of the investigative project - the fruit of "interdisciplinary work" that has been carried out since June 2012 with "continuous coordination" between specialists in the digestive system, general surgery, pharmacy and radiology.
The initiative is a joint project with the Japanese biopharmaceutical company Takeda, which signed a risk-sharing agreement with the Ministry of Health to finance the application of this stem cell therapy in the National Health System.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com