The Spanish Magazine of Surgical Research gave away an important medical achievement award, the Diosniso Daza v Chacon prize, in Cuba for the treatment of lower limb ischemia by using automatic transplantation of adult stem cells from the same person. 

The Deputy Director of Researchers of the Hematology and Immunology Institute, Porfirio Hernández is the chief author of the work titled ‘Autotransplant of Adult Stem Cells in Lower Limb with Critical Ischemia.’ The other recipients of this award were Dr Elvira Dorticos and physicians Lázaro Cortina, Consuelo Macías, Lázaro del Valle and Rosa María Lam. The research also included studying people that had intense ischemic cardiopathy.
 
Initially Cuba did some laboratory testing with animals and later conducted the first clinical trial in 2002 using adult stems they got from the same person who had lower limb peripheral arteriopathy. Because of imperfect blood circulation the patient’s arteries of the lower limb were affected, similar to atherosclerosis disease that attacks the coronary arteries thereby affecting the arteries going to the brain.

This disease requires swift treatment as it can affect the limb’s vitality, can cause skin diseases or even hair loss or feeling of coldness, wounds not healing and also any present ulcers turning to gangrene. The most obvious symptoms include pain getting worse, even if the patient is rested. 

Apart from the Island of Cuba, other European and Asian countries also conducted this kind of regenerative technique of implants. Pinar del Rio, Villa Clara and Cienfuegos have also shown promising results.