The Dr. Frank R. Berenson of the USA recently visited the city with the intention of personally evaluate the stem cell transplant program that is currently carried out in the practice of Dr. Consuelo Mancias-Guerra, of the Hematology Service of the University Hospital, U.A.N.L.
Berenson is a physician located primarily in Atlanta, Georgia, and his specialties include psychiatry and neurology. The main reason for his visit is that several of his patients with cerebral palsy have come to see Dr. Mancias-Guerra and his motivation was to see what treatment they were receiving.
“The most significant improvement I have seen is about skills and motor functions after the therapy,” says Berenson, “but I have also seen improvement in attention, cognition, monitoring and intellectual functions in general.”
His first patient who visited the University Hospital was ten years ago, when cell therapy was at an early stage of development. The results were appreciable and many of the patients who have visited Dr. Consuelo Mancias-Guerra have obtained significant improvements in their function.
“I am very impressed with the professionalism of Dr. Mancias-Guerra,” said Berenson, “she is extraordinary with families, very compassionate and does very well with her patients.”
To this he added that he is moved by the treatment he has with his patients and their level of skill and knowledge.
“I am also very pleased with the hospital services and the level of care provided,” the American doctor said.
Regarding the treatment with stem cells that is currently carried out in the UANL, he stressed that he prefers that his patients really receive what is being offered in Monterrey, since in the U.S. many of the available clinical studies are with the use of placebos of control.
“In addition,” he added, “here cell therapy is delivered intrathecally, with an injection or puncture in the spinal cord and in the United States cell therapy is applied intravenously.”
To all this, he expresses that he believes that intrathecal treatment is more effective. “I think it is a treatment that will be very important for patients with cerebral palsy in the future,” he concluded.
ABOUT DR. FRAN BERENSON
Dr. Frank Berenson studied at the University of North Carolina and the University of Georgia. He subsequently received his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia and completed a pediatric residency there.
After this, he completed his neurology training at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio, and continued his practice at Case Western Reserve University and at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital as an assistant professor of child neurology. Dr. Berenson has practiced medicine for headaches and neurology in the Atlanta area since 1997.
Dr. Berenson is one of only two people in the state of Georgia addressed in Medicine for headache. He is also interned in neurology and psychiatry with special qualifications in child neurology. Dr. Berenson has also participated in numerous clinical trials and drug studies related to the treatment of headache disorders. He has also published in the field of headache medicine, and speaks nationally and internationally about headache disorders.
