Fresh cell therapy followed by fatal coma

Abstract

A 60-year-old woman received a 3-day course of nine injections of "fresh" cells from fetal lamb ovary, placenta, brain (hypothalamus) and liver. There were no immediate complications, but a few days later she developed headache, fever and hemiparesis. She subsequently fell into a coma and died 3 weeks after her fresh cell therapy and 2 weeks after the onset of her clinical symptoms. Autopsy revealed perivenous leucoencephalopathy with a probably steroid-treatment-induced paucity of perivascular inflammation. Fresh cell therapy, clinical symptomatology and morphological findings suggest, though do not prove, that this patient's monophasic and probably immune-mediated disease is a rare fatal complication of fresh cell therapy.