HBO treatments may improve neurological outcome after traumatic brain injury

Oct 22 2009

Hard to Treat Diseases, Inc. (HTDS:PK), http://www.htdsmedical.com announced that researchers in its Slavica BioChem division have reported new positive results of experiments in which the potential beneficial effects of Hyperbaric oxygenation (HBO) after traumatic brain injury have been explored.

In the previous press release (reported at July 27, 2009) they revealed that repetitive HBO treatments, which started 1 hour after traumatic brain injury, significantly reduced neuronal loss and degeneration, suggesting that HBO was able to attenuate the effects of brain damage by reducing the progression of neuronal injury. These data indicate that HBO-induced prevention of neurodegeneration might be beneficial in improvement of neurological outcome after traumatic brain injury. The results were presented by Professor Mirjana Stojiljkovic, a Medical Advisor of HTDS, in a summary Poster format which was available for review by attendees at the 38th Annual Meeting of Society for Neuroscience's (SfN) that was held Nov. 15 to 19, 2008 in Washington, DC, USA. Professor Stojiljkovic reported that poster attracted numerous scientists and medical doctors, and for close to 4 hours discussion on this topic continued.

Dr. Sanja Pekovic, Chief Project Scientist, Chief Strategy Officer added: "The experiments were performed on rats, but since we haven't hyperbaric chambers, HBO treatments were conducted in collaboration with doctors from the Hyperbaric Medical Center, School of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia. Since data concerning brain injury are lacking and are controversial, our data are the first demonstration (all was visualized using immunohistochemical technique and specific antibodies to neuronal markers) of prevention of axonal loss and neuronal degeneration using HBO therapy. However, these data encourage us to continue our work and latest experiments revealed new beneficial effects of HBO treatment on inflammatory processes after traumatic brain injury".

Neuroinflammation following acute brain trauma is considered to play a prominent role in both the pathological and reconstructive response of the brain to injury. The CD40 receptor (CD40) and CD40 ligand (CD40L) has now been well established as a pair of regulators of pro-inflammatory and immune responses. Strategies to suppress CD40/CD40L expression may attenuate inflammation and neuronal damage within the CNS, which will ultimately be of benefit in recovery.

Dr. Sanja Pekovic said: "Our experiments for the first time showed that HBO treatment reduces expression of these promoters of inflammatory responses after traumatic brain injury and recommend HBO treatment as an attractive therapeutic tool for improving recovery from head injury."

Part of these results will be presented by Dr. Irena Lavrnja, a member of IBISS research team http://www.slavicabiochem.com/staff.html, at Meeting of European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST), action B30: Neural Regeneration and Plasticity that will take place in Cyprus (October 24-25, 2009).

A poster of company research is also posted on Pink Sheets under the TAB FILINGS.

In other company events, the company completed its discussions with Canadian Pharmaceutical company representatives for the MindUp cancer project. Next step will be the completion and review of the legal documents together with the completion of the due diligence and meeting the Canadian scientists and their CEO and management staff here in Belgrade together with scientific disclosures. HTDS anticipates to close the transaction within the next 4 to 6 weeks.

Other discussion topics included the following:

The Slavica team was also presented with an opportunity to aquire a profitable stem cell research company in from one of the EU member countries. This is a profitable revenue generating business already in operation, update on IP rights, new possible patent and trademark for Slavica work to name a few.

As these are significant events the company intends to provide seperate detailed filings and news releases on each of these items and their progress stage shortly.

The company continues to address the stock chill issue with DTC and Pink Sheets