Lawrence Brown

Stem-cell therapy shows results

“They call it a really good placebo effect,” Lawrence said. “Whatever, if it’s a placebo effect, I want some more.”

By Erica Molina Johnson / El Paso Times, Posted: 08/07/2009 12:00:00 AM

Lawrence Brown III looks at the number “10″ on a family laptop and tells his mother Georgina Brown what the number is as part of a daily exercise to see if his sight is improving. (Ruben R. Ramirez / El Paso Times)

EL PASO — Lawrence E. Brown III easily spotted and then picked up a bottle of sunblock a friend dropped Wednesday afternoon. For most people, it is insignificant. But for Lawrence, 16, who has been blind since birth, it was an exceptional moment.

For him and his family, a gamble on a Chinese stem-cell procedure to treat his blindness is beginning to pay off. The procedure is not available in this country and is met with skepticism by many American doctors. No treatment exists for Brown’s condition, said Dr. Michael Repka, pediatric ophthalmologist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Brown was born with optic nerve hypoplasia, an underdevelopment of the nerves in his eyes. Before his family left to Qingdao, China, on June 20, his vision was little more than limited perception of light, color and shadowy masses. He and his mother and sister spent six weeks in China so that he could undergo nine stem-cell transfusions intended to stimulate the growth of his optic nerves.

The cells were delivered intravenously on his arm or injected directly into his spine. He received acupuncture and electric wave therapy to help stimulate the cells’ work. “I didn’t expect for it to go as far as it has, and I’m just wondering what the heck is going to happen in the next nine months,” Lawrence said Wednesday. He jokes that he is part Chinese now that he has received the transfusions.

Doctors in China told him the stem cells would continue to do their work over the next nine to 12 months. He is exercising and taking vitamins to help the umbilical stem cells have the greatest effect possible.”Every day for the next year, every time I wake up, I wonder if something new is going to happen,” Law rence said. “Every day holds a new possibility.”

To measure his progress, Georgina A. Brown shows her son flashcards. On one card, Lawrence saw six blobs a few weeks ago. Now, he can see six circles. On another card, a nearly 7-inch-tall letter L that he first saw in China now seems a little too big when held about seven inches from his face. He can now make out a nearly 5-inch-tall letter B from about the same distance on a computer screen. His mom quizzes him often with the cards or other objects that happen to be around. Lawrence has always read in Braille and is just starting to learn the letters by sight.

He is spotting colors more easily and is beginning to discern the different textures and angles of objects. And his nystagmus, or rapid and involuntary eye movements, has lessened dramatically.  “I didn’t expect this (all improvements), but I hoped for it,” he said.

He hasn’t yet been evaluated by a doctor to gauge his improvement, but he said he didn’t need the professional confirmation to know the procedure is working. The Browns said they’re not optimistic that Lawrence’s local doctor will declare the procedure a success. “There’s a running joke (in China) with the staff. They call it a really good placebo effect,” Lawrence said. “Whatever, if it’s a placebo effect, I want some more.”

While in China, they tried to make the most of the new cultural experience. With the help of a translator or simply through hand movements reminiscent of a game of charades, the family navigated their way through markets and parks and visited a temple, zoo and aquarium. They shied away from eating much meat because it often appeared uncovered and not refrigerated at neighborhood markets. At street markets, they saw displays of animal internal organs, roasted dog heads, bugs on skewers and stinky durian fruits. Georgina Brown said it was much like being on Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” television show that appears on the Travel Channel.

“We were going to eat bugs, but I couldn’t do it,” Lawrence said. Georgina Brown said she was excited that her family could have that cultural experience. “I think it gave them a different outlook on the culture itself to know how much we have here and how fortunate we are,” she said. They learned a little more about the world than many visitors to China by socializing with other families at the hospital who traveled there from countries such as Libya, Switzerland, Ireland, England and Romania.

“This experience also gave my children an experience to see all the different children. There are children with SMA (spinal muscular atrophy). Children who can’t see, can’t talk, can’t walk.” The Brown family returned from China on July 31. Lawrence has spent all day every day this week at band practice at El Paso High School. He will start his senior year of high school there in two weeks. Meanwhile, the family is looking for someone to continue his acupuncture treatments in El Paso. They’re also in the hunt for a power converter that will allow them to plug Lawrence’s electric wave therapy machine into American power outlets.

He is hopeful that he can return to China next summer to undergo another round of stem-cell transfusions. “There is nothing that I’m going to go through that I can’t handle,” Lawrence said. “You have to look at life that way, or else you can just sit and cry in a corner.”

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El Paso teen gets stem cell treatment in China in hopes of seeing

He says treatments have improved lifelong vision disorder.

By Erica Molina Johnson
EL PASO TIMES
Monday, August 03, 2009

EL PASO — The quest for sight that took Lawrence E. Brown III and his family to China for an unproven stem cell treatment will soon be at an end.  The El Paso High School senior received his last umbilical stem cell transfusion and returned home a few days ago, and so all he has left to do is wait. He'll wait to see whether the nerves in his eyes strengthen and develop.  He'll wait to see whether he can better make out the colors and shapes that have eluded him his entire life. He'll wait to see.

Brown, 16, was born with optic nerve hypoplasia, an underdevelopment of the nerves in his eyes. He has been able to perceive only light and shadows. He could see shapes and colors if objects were held up at just the right angle. That is, until last month, when the world began coming into focus. After raising $60,000 for the procedure and travel expenses, Brown went to Qingdao, China, on June 20 with his mother and sister.  He began acupuncture and electric wave therapy, which he described in his blog as "like an intense deep-tissue brain massage."

He received his first intravenous treatment of stem cells four days after his arrival. On June 29, he received his first treatment of stem cells via a needle inserted into his spine. He and his family decided to try the treatment despite its lack of endorsement from the medical community in the United States. Patients with optic nerve hypoplasia have long been told there's no treatment for the condition. But Brown sought the possible stem cell cure after reading about one of its most successful patients, a Colorado teenager whose vision improved so much that she obtained a driver's permit.

Despite a fear of needles, Brown went forward with the treatment 7,000 miles from home. By July 1, his eyes began to itch. He became hopeful, because others with the same condition who have had improvement through the therapy had the same response. On July 9, doctors told Brown his vision had improved slightly. His nystagmus, or rapid involuntary eye movements, had lessened. "Today, I was able to see a candy wrapper on the floor. This is really exciting news and after this it will only get better," Brown wrote in his blog.

His vision is far from developed, but he's excited by the improvements he's experienced so far.  "Colors such as red and blue, which I have always seen right up against my eyes, are becoming visible from a further distance and much more vivid," he said in an e-mail.  Another new experience is perceiving movement from the shadowy shapes he now sees.  "Yesterday, when we got out of the elevator, he got a little dizzy because the silhouettes were moving," his mom, Georgina Brown, said in a recent telephone interview. "He was kind of disoriented there for a minute because he's never been able to see movement like that."

"The world seems a shade brighter than before," Lawrence Brown wrote. By July 12, his excitement was evident as he wrote about visiting a Buddhist temple with his mom and sister, though an overcast day kept his new visual experience from being as sharp as it could have been. "The colors and light were much more vivid to me. I could tell my mom and (sister) Emani every time I saw red," Brown wrote. "It's all over the temples." A trip to the grocery store filled him with optimism because he noticed the white lines of crosswalks as his taxicab made its way down the street. He said he'd never been able to see those lines from a moving vehicle before that.

"The red lettering on the hospital was also visible to me," he wrote. "I cannot tell the shapes of the letters, but I could point to the red." He noticed that a mass of red was actually smaller shapes when he stopped to examine flowers. "I stepped back two yards and was still able to see that they were red. The closer I was, I could see that the red was not all one mass," he wrote. A rainstorm July 13 made him notice lightning brighter than he'd ever seen before.

He went to bed that night with his eyes itching as they had before. The Brown family originally was approved to receive eight stem cell treatments for Lawrence. A ninth packet of cells was approved as his vision improved. He returned to El Paso to wait, hoping to watch the world around him become brighter and sharper. "I am just thankful for the results I have already gotten," Brown said

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