Early Tissue Distribution of Bone Marrow Mononuclear Cells After Intra-Arterial Delivery in a Patient With Chronic Stroke

A 24-year-old man with a cerebral infarct within the left middle cerebral artery (MCA) territory was enrolled in a study to assess the safety of autologous bone marrow mononuclear cell (BMMC) transplantation in patients with ischemic stroke (NCT00473057). His National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score was 7. Computed tomography (Figure 1A) and technetium-99m ethyl cysteinate dimer (99mTc ECD) single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) (Figures 1B and 2⇓ and Movie I in the online-only Data Supplement) indicated the location of the infarct. Sixty-seven days after onset of symptoms, the patient underwent BMMC transplantation. Bone marrow blood was aspirated under local anesthesia from both iliac crests and processed to isolate the mononuclear cell fraction. A total of 5×108 BMMCs was suspended into a volume of 10 mL, and 1 mL of the cell suspension was radiolabeled with 99mTc (radioactivity 111 MBq, physical …