Background:
- Spina bifida (SB) is a common malformation due to neural tube defects. Children with SB often suffer from long-term functional disorders such as urinary dysfunction, bowel dysfunction, paraplegia, and other problems.
- Bowel dysfunction, which includes constipation, fecal incontinence, or both, is observed in 42.2–71.2% of patients with SB. This significantly affects the quality of life of these patients, leading to embarrassment, anxiety, depression, and social isolation.
- Traditional treatments for bowel dysfunction in SB patients, such as diet adjustments, oral laxatives, and nerve-stimulation implants, sometimes fail to achieve fecal continence.
- Stem cell transplantation (SCT) has emerged as an alternative treatment option for patients with neurologic damage, showing promising outcomes.
Objective:
The main objective of this paper was to report the improvement in bowel function in two children with spina bifida after undergoing bone marrow-derived mononuclear cells (BMMNC) transplantation.Case Reports:
- Patient 1: A 14-year-old boy who had undergone myelomeningocele repair and suffered from bowel dysfunction. After two BMMNC transplantations:
- He began to feel the urge to defecate and could defecate once every 2–3 days.
- He could feel the urge to urinate and was able to urinate about 10 ml at a time.
- 21 months after the first transplantation, the patient was able to defecate once every 1-2 days without any issues. He could also urinate voluntarily about 40 ml at a time, but his bladder did not empty entirely, so clean intermittent catheterization (CIC) was still required.
- Patient 2: An 11-year-old girl with a small myelomeningocele located at L5 and S1. She could not defecate spontaneously and suffered from repeated urinary infections. (The report was cut off, so further details about this patient's treatment and outcomes are not provided.)