Researchers from Canada and Japan have developed an injectable gel that can repair damaged muscles involved in swallowing in rats.  

Swallowing disorders, which can cause malnutrition, dehydration and pneumonia, affect around 8% of the world population, often due to stroke and head and neck cancers. Stem cell therapies are a promising treatment, but with limited success, since the cells grow into spheres and die due to lack of oxygen and nutrients in their core. 

Researchers from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), an EARA member, and Kyoto University, mixed rat stem cells from fat tissue with fragments of a biodegradable gel that gave the cells space to growth while allowing oxygen and nutrients to permeate the mix. In the gel, more than 5 times as many stem cells survived than when they grew without the gel.  

When the gel was injected into the neck muscle of rats with injured swallowing muscles, there were 20% more stem cells incorporated in the muscle and the rats had improved swallowing after three weeks of treatment.   

“This minimally invasive approach could one day help restore normal swallowing function for patients whose current options are limited to rehabilitation exercises or surgery,” said Nicole Li-Jessen, researcher at RI-MUHC and leader of the study published in Biomaterials. 

The gel has already undergone Phase I and Phase II clinical trials in Japan as part of a different application for cancer.