Treating Autism Spectrum Disorder

1. Autologous UCB Programme.
2. Allogeneic Therapy Programme.
3. Combination Therapy Programme.

In recent years, it has become common practice for parents to request that blood and tissues collected from their child’s umbilical cord (UCB) be stored for future use. In our Autologous UCB Programme, the patient is given a infusion of his or her own UCB.

Our Allogeneic Therapy Programme is for patients who do not have their own UCB stored. MSCs are harvested from the Wharton's Jelly layer found in the umbilical cords of newborn Malaysian babies and processed in our laboratory to produce Wharton's Jelly MSCs (wjMSCs). The donor cord tissues and resulting wjMSCs are tested according to the strictest international protocols before they are used in therapy.

Autologous UCB Infusion and Autism

Phase 1 of an open label trial conducted in Durham, North Carolina concluded that UCB infusions to treat young children with autism were not only safe and feasible but described significant improvements in behaviour ^[1]. 7-year-old Gracie Gregory, a participant of the trial, showed such a significant improvement that her story was featured on a major American news television channel ^[2].

A more rigorous and stringent randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial in Sacramento, California provided more conservative results noting only that a core symptom of autism, socialisation, showed trends in improvement. Parents of the children in the trial, however, attested to significant improvements in overall development such as language and social interaction ^[3,4].

Allogeneic Therapy and Autism

A 2019 study published by a Panamanian institute treated eight children with donor wjMSCs. At the 12‐month visit, subjects had improvements in their CARS scores that placed them in a lower threshold category of autism symptoms when compared with baseline. They also showed improvements in the ATEC scale that signified drops into lower percentiles at the 12‐month visit compared with baseline; notably, 5 of them scored in the 10th percentile (<30, mild autism).

Periodic psychiatric evaluations showed that the group of children who presented improvements in efficacy variables also manifested increased awareness, noticeable improvements in social communication (both verbal and expressive) and motor ability ^[4a].

Combination Therapy and Autism

Combination Therapy may offer a unique treatment strategy for autism due to the immune and neural dysregulation observed in this disease. The proposed treatment is performed using the patient’s own (autologous) UCB in conjunction with wjMSCs from an unmatched donor (allogeneic). 

In 2009, researchers from China conducted a clinical trial to test the efficacy of using both the patient's own UCB (autologous) as well as wjMSCs from a donor (allogeneic) in conjunction with rehabilitative therapy. In 2013, the study concluded that reported that 6 months post-therapy, subjects showed a 37.9% decrease in Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) scores. The combination group also demonstrated improvements in behaviors as determined for the sub-scales of “Relating to people”, “Body use“, “Visual response”, “Taste, smell, and touch response and use” and “General impressions”. There were also statistically significant differences in the Clinician's Global Impressions-Severity of Illness scale (CGI-SI) score for the combination group at 6 months. At 24 weeks post-treatment, Clinician's Global Impressions-Global Improvement (CGI-GI) scale and Clinician's Global Impressions-Efficacy Index (CGI-EI) scale scores in the combination group improved by 88.89%. Most importantly, compared to pre-treatment assessments, there was a 59.9% decrease in total Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC) scores at 6 months. ^[4b].

How Our Products Can Treat Autism

We use products derived from human baby umbilical cord tissues in all our therapy programmes - Wharton's Jelly MSCs (wjMSCs). The human brain is strictly regulated by the blood-brain barrier (BBB). This is a semipermeable endothelial membrane that separates blood from cerebrospinal fluid. It is a highly selective mechanism that allows only a select few types of cells, particles and molecules enter the brain. Our products are special because they can:

• cross the endothelial brain barrier ^[5,6,7,8].
• migrate to sites of injury (chemotaxis) ^[9,10].
• communicate with and alter nearby cells (paracrine effect) ^[11,12,13].
• encourage existing cells to self-repair (autocrine effect) ^[13,14,15].
• prevent rejection by regulating the immune system (immunomodulation) ^{[9,10,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]}.
• reduce inflammation ^{[10,21,22,23,24,25,27]}.
• prevent cells from dying (apoptosis) ^{[9,10,12,23,28]}.
• transform into neurons and glia ^{[24,28,29,30,31,32]}.
• promote the formation of nerve cell axons (axogenesis) ^[25,26].
• incapable of forming tumours ^[9,18,19,33].
• release neuroprotective factors ^[12,34].
• encourage existing cells to adapt (neuroplasticity) ^[35,36,37].

Cyrona’s Programme

Achieving high standards in our work is of paramount importance to us. Depending on a patient’s needs, we combine our premium grade Passage 2 wjMSCs with physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and/or rehabilitative medicine. 

Learn more about our Products and Programs.

Why Choose Cyrona?

• Latest cellular research and technology.
• Unique, tailored therapy outlines.
• Products that meet international standards.
• Microbiology & clinical team with extensive experience in advanced medicine.
• Board-certified physicians geared towards patient safety.
• Fact-based information from clinical studies and trials.
• No outlandish promises of a one-stop-cure or false improvement rates.

Therapy Packages

All our therapy packages come inclusive of:

How Do We Proceed

In our Allogeneic Therapy Programme, the number of products required is determined by the age and body weight of the patient. For both our Allogeneic Therapy Programme and Autologous UCB Programme, our specialists prefer to review each patient’s medical reports before determining if allogeneic (donor tissue) therapy, autologous (own UCB) therapy or a combination (allogeneic + autologous) therapy will be most beneficial to the patient.

You may chat with one of our Customer Care Representatives or send an e-mail detailing the patient’s condition to one of our Liaison Officers. It would expedite the process if you can provide us with:

• The age and body weight of the patient.
• Imaging results (MRI scan / CT scan / X-Ray).
• Hematology reports (blood test).
• Doctor’s assessment reports.
• Pictures or videos of the patient (if relevant).

Upon getting in touch with us, a Liaison Officer evaluates and assigns the case to the specialist best equipped to treat the condition. A therapy, unique only to the patient, is drawn up and a price quoted accordingly.

Should you decide to proceed with therapy, our specialists require that all patients have Cancer Marker Screening performed in their country of residence before travelling to us for therapy. If the patient has had Cancer Marker Screening within the last 3 months, you may e-mail those results to us. In the event that the patient’s Cancer Marker Screening results are not satisfactory, our specialists will refuse to proceed with therapy. It is for this reason that we requests that patients have Cancer Marker Screening performed in their country of residence prior to travelling to us.

One week prior to arrival, a deposit payment is required in order to arrange accommodation and transportation.

Full payment is required to be made one-day prior to therapy commencement.

Post-treatment, our specialist will provide the patient with a post-treatment protocol as well as what to expect on his or her journey towards a better, and hopefully, healthier new life.