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Nov 13, 2009 5:38 pm US/Central
Plano Man Says Stem Cell Travel Saved His Life
PLANO (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
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Stem cells are considered by many to be the key to curing disease. They start out "neutral," but can become every kind of body tissue through "differentiation."
CBS
It was his only hope to stay alive. Joe Woofolk of Plano and his wife Judy, traveled thousands of miles for a controversial treatment Joe couldn't get in Texas. Three years later, he's still alive to tell his story.
Even after 3 heart attacks, and bypass surgery that nearly killed him, 65 year old Joe Woofolk would never miss a game of golf, if he had anything to say about it. But about three years ago, Joe started slowing down. "I got really tired playing golf and I didn't leave the house at all."
Just walking a few feet was impossible. Heart disease had taken its toll. "I figured my days were numbered the doctor said they had done everything they could for me."
But Joe and his wife Judy are not the type to give up. Judy says "He couldn't do what he wanted to do anymore it was so sad because he had always been such an active person."
The couple began looking for anything that would keep Joe's heart beating. They found a company in Thailand that performs stem cell transplants for patients in heart failure. Joe told CBS 11 "I had no choice. I was either going to die or try something to stay alive."
Just before Christmas 2006, the Woofolks got on a plane, went to Bangkok and checked into a hospital. Judy says "This hospital ranked as good or better than any American hospital we had ever been in."
Doctors in Thailand removed adult stem cells from Joe's blood and immediately sent them to a lab in Israel. There, the cells were grown for a week then flown back to Thailand where they were injected directly into Joe's failing heart.
Dr. Jay Schneider, a cardiologist at UT southwestern in Dallas is studying stem cell therapy for heart disease. "For patients with advanced heart failure there are really no options. It's thought that those cells can be injected into the heart and in that environment they might rebuild heart muscle."
Dr. Schneider's team recently received millions of dollars, from the National Institutes of Health, to study whether stem cells can help heal damaged heart muscle. So far, U.S. trials have reported little or no improvement. It's such a lethal and deadly disease that any improvement is really significant but it's nowhere near what we had hoped to achieve by actually rebuilding muscle."
Joe Woofolk says he's living proof stem cell therapy works. "My blood pressure is normal, stress test is fine, I just turned 65 and I can play 36 holes of golf."
But Dr. Schneider cautions, overseas facilities may not follow the strict scientific standards we're used to here in the United States. "If they fail, we won't know it. If patients die, we won't know it. All those things are rigidly controlled in the U.S. trial."
Joe Woofolk says he'd do it again. He's enjoying time with his wife Judy and a few days a week on the golf course. "I play golf three times a week I go to the lake and mow and clean up, we take trips, we eat out, it's back to the way it normally is."
Joe's procedure was entirely out of pocket at a cost of around 60-thousand dollars. But there are close to 200 scientific trials going on right now around the country focusing on stem cell therapy for heart patients.
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