"Tonight on Panorama:" "Exclusive access to patients pioneering a radical treatment for an incurable disease." "I just melted." "My body was just unable to get across the road and I just slumped onto the floor." "Multiple Sclerosis affects 100,000 people in the UK, most of them diagnosed in their 20s and 30s." "This all happened within a couple of months." "I had to get a wheelchair, couldn't cook, couldn't dress myself." "It's just scary because you think, well, when is it going to end?" "Now there's hope that a bone marrow stem cell transplant, usually given to cancer patients, could stop MS in its tracks, preventing lifelong disability." "To live without that burden is going to be the biggest release for me and freedom for me and that, you can't get any better than that." "I hope I get the blue kayak." " Blue one?" " Yeah." "Steven Storey was diagnosed with MS two years ago." "In that time, he's gone from being a marathon runner to losing the use of his legs." "Let's see how well we can wheelchair across this gravel." "Before MS life was fantastic." "I used to do lots of sport, triathlon, mountain marathons, lots of cycling." "I did a lot of climbing." "I spent a lot of time with the kids and doing lots of those things with them as well." "Hold that, Dad!" "Now he's back kayaking with his daughters for the first time since his diagnosis." "It's really fun, yeah." "I'm enjoying it." "It's like what we used to do." "It's bringing back a lot of memories from before." "There's lots of adventures, we've just got to redefine what those adventures are." "Whatever your condition, there's always things you can do." "Steven hopes he will one day walk again." "He's part a group of MS patients in Sheffield undergoing a cancer treatment at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital." "Paul Kirkham is one of 100 people a week in the UK diagnosed with MS." "I was one of the most active person out of my friends." "In the last three months, where I've had a relapse," "I've not been out of the house, to be honest." "He's being assessed by neurologist Professor Basil Sharrack in the hope of starting the intensive stem cell treatment." "Step forward." "OK, I'd like to see how stable you are on your legs." "Stand there." "I'd like you to walk heel-to-toe like that." "That's a bit difficult." " It is, yeah." " That's fine." "We're done." "What I've noticed is it's them toes here." "I feel like them ones are numb, yeah." "It's like walking about with blocks of ice on my feet." "That's because of the inflammation in the spinal cord affecting the ability of these nerves to transmit normal sensation up to your brain." "That will give you the feeling of the toes not feeling normal." "MS occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks the protective insulation around nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord, causing inflammation." "Just as a frayed electrical wire short-circuits, the nerve fibres malfunction." "This causes a huge range of symptoms, from fatigue and pain, to balance and walking problems and sometimes permanent disability." "For 13 years, Paul's MS was mild." "But the disease recently became aggressive, forcing him to stop work." "Even going back to work, well, I'd love to do that " "I'd go back to work and crack on with my life." "This has only happened in the last three month, prior to that, I could go for a walk, take the dog, probably a couple of miles." "Can't manage it, can you?" " I'm struggling, really struggling, aren't I?" " Yeah." "Despite Paul's MS, the family used to enjoy all kinds of sports together, but now skiing is no longer possible." "I cannot believe that were a year-and-a-half ago." "And I were doing that." "Now look at me." "I'm a bit gutted we didn't go this year." "But hopefully we'll be there next year." "There should be a lot of us." "It should be good." "There you are." "Just going over some jumps." "Professor John Snowden, a specialist in treating blood cancers, hopes to fix Paul's immune system with a standard treatment in his field - a bone marrow transplant." "We would hope to rebuild your immune system in a slightly different way." "It will still be your own immune system." "It's not actually a true transplant, because it's going to be stem cells from yourself." "In effect an immune system that's been reset or rebooted back to a time point before it caused MS." "This "reboot" of the immune system uses the patient's own stem cells, found in their bone marrow." "These cells are at such an early stage they've not developed the flaws that trigger MS." "But the transplant is an arduous treatment." "We have to mention that occasionally some people have quite a difficult time with this type of treatment, because it does involve intensive chemotherapy and it is a transplant procedure." " Hey-up, Mum." " Hello, love." " You all right?" "I am now." "I've been thinking about you all day." "I'm on t'chemo now." " All right dad?" " Lovely." "How do you feel coming in and seeing Paul today?" "A bit emotional." "But we're positive, aren't we?" "He's the youngest, yeah, he's me baby." "You don't expect anything like this to happen to them." "I know that he's been really poorly." "He's tried to put a brave face on, haven't you?" "And he's been a bit depressed, haven't you?" "He's not been able to work and he's always been a worker." "He loves his job." "He loves his children." "Paul's first dose of chemotherapy, which is combined with growth hormones, is designed to flush out stem cells from his bone marrow." "I had a bit of a rough night." "But got about four hours' sleep." "I felt a bit sick in the night, but they seem to think that might go, but we'll see." "A week later, the drugs have done their work." "The stem cells have left the bone marrow and are now circulating in his blood, ready to be harvested." "They're going to start sieving the stem cells out of me body." "It amazes me what they can do." "Are you all right with needles?" "You're not a fainter?" "No, I'm not." "I've been like an hedgehog over the last few days, with the amount I've had in me!" "Feeling all right?" " I feel a bit hot-headed." " Get me the fan." "Blood is taken out of one arm and the stem cells skimmed off and collected." "whilst in Paul's other arm, the rest of the blood is returned." "Have you come to look at me stem cells." " Can you see them?" " That's it there." "That bag to the right, that's my stem cells." "The one to the left is plasma." "Say bye to your cells!" "That's the size of the potato we've got for tea." "Give over!" "There'll be bigger ones." "Louise Barritt lives with her fiance, Steve..." " Your best moves!" " ..and her son, Owen." "Like more than eight in ten MS patients, Louise has the relapsing remitting form of the disease, which this therapy hopes to treat." "It means she suffers acute attacks, relapses, but with periods of recovery in between." "It's got worse this year, since I've had the relapse." "MS takes its toll not just on her body, but her mind." "The biggest thing is the fatigue and just feeling absolutely exhausted and not just feeling tired, but it's the brain fog and the inability to concentrate and follow conversations and make decisions." "Louise has already started her stem cell treatment at the Royal Hallamshire." "My mum, she has relapses, like, and she sometimes has like her hands go all pins and needles because she's got MS." "And they're trying to make it better." "Her stem cells have been harvested, so Louise is about to go back into hospital, where she'll be kept in isolation to prevent infection while doctors first delete and then reboot her immune system." "She might feel a bit..." "Um, probably nervous." "But she might feel happy that she's having it." "But I know it might not work, but hopefully it does." "Owen won't be able to visit his mum for several weeks during this second phase of the treatment." "That's going to be the tough thing through all this, really." "Because he's only ten." "He's never really been apart from me." "I don't think he quite understands what they're fixing." "Louise doesn't have cancer but is about to start aggressive chemotherapy and knows it will have side effects." "With everything else going on with the treatment," "I want this to be one of the easy things I've got to deal with." "Before I cut all my hair off," "I spent a long, long time growing my hair, so I'm very attached to it, it's actually quite a big deal for it all to go." "So, yeah, I'm trying to make it as easy as possible, really." "Louise is now in isolation." "She's had her chemo and has reached a critical day in her treatment." "You've got a calendar with all the days crossed off?" "Yeah." "Days to freedom crossed off in green ticks there." " INTERVIEWER:" " That's today you've got marked up there?" " Yeah." "This is what we call today, Day Zero, transplant day." "Inside this tank, stored in liquid nitrogen, are the stem cells that could transform her health, hopefully rebuilding her immune system free of MS." "And the lovely Louise is due her stem cells today, on the 13th." "She's had all her chemotherapy over the weekend." "We're good to go." "Snap, crackle and pop!" "Just two bags containing two cupfuls of Louise's own stem cells are all it takes to re-kindle her immune system." "It just takes a few minutes to do." "So the volumes are not too big, actually, so they should only take about ten minutes to go in." "For nurses treating cancer, this is routine practice." "What happens to these cells is they hover around in your circulating blood system for three or four days and then they have like a homing mechanism on them and they migrate into the marrow." "The things that are going to rescue me." "More than 100 patients with relapsing remitting MS are being recruited in four cities" " Sheffield, Chicago, Stockholm and Sao Paulo, to a major trial, which will report in a couple of years and could establish this as a mainstream treatment." "It's such a small procedure really, just putting it back into me body and that's it." "We're just waiting then for the stem cells to do their work." "For Paul, it's also Day Zero." "Like Louise, his stem cells are being transplanted." "Once they're established, both can go home." "How you doing, kid, you all right?" "Steven is back on this ward for the first time since his transplant." "What gets me is there's no guarantees." "They won't tell you how you're going to be, which I understand they don't know fully, do they?" " Of course, no." " You know what I mean?" "Whether I'll make 100% recovery, I don't know." " I'm getting rebooted, aren't I?" " Exactly, that's the whole point." "People what understand computers and that, you know what a reboot it." "Exactly, just turn it off and restart it." "It reboots the system." "That's what we're doing with the immune system." "It's just absolutely staggering." "Steven used to compete in triathlons." "But then, out of the blue, MS struck him down." "I was crossing a road." "I didn't fall, but I just melted." "My body was unable to get across the road and I slumped onto the floor." "Somebody came over to help me and the next day I came into the hospital." "Within nine months, Steven's condition had deteriorated to the point where he needed 24-hour acute care." " Were you bad when you came onto the second phase?" " Yes." "At your stage now I was completely paralysed, unable to even flicker my toe, unable to do anything." "There is a point in your spinal cord called T10." "From there down, I had zero sensation and zero muscle flicker." "I couldn't even flicker a muscle." "You could've stabbed me in my leg and I wouldn't have felt it." "I had a feeling it would be the rest of my life like that." "I had a conversation with my kids about mortality." "The prognosis could well have been continuing the speed of the decline, respiratory failure, intensive care, we all know where that ends." "Almost immediately, the treatment allowed his nervous system to start to recover." "From Day Zero, the day you get your transplant, within nine days I could flicker my toe." "It felt pretty good!" "I could flicker my toe." "And I Skyped the girls and showed them with my tablet and I think they dropped theirs!" "It was..." "They were not expecting that at all." "It was..." "That was a moment in time." "In the middle of my treatment..." "And I'm thinking, "I will try my best," ""whatever I can do, I'll push myself as hard as I can."" "When I was in this room, I made a commitment to myself, that if I ever got back to being able to do something," "I made a bucket list of various things I wanted to do when I got out." "One of the things was within a year I wanted to take part in another event." "Just ten months later, Steven completed a mile-long swim in the Lake District." "Normally, people often come over to you and say, "Are you OK?"" "What's great is, no-one was doing that." "If you're wearing a wet suit ready to do the race, you don't need our help, just crack on." "It was great." "I felt that I was back." "Well done!" "CHEERING" "But for Steven, the treatment came only after MS had done severe damage to his nervous system, so there may be limits to his recovery." "That is one foot there." "Try and get both feet over on the floor first." "So..." " I didn't want to take your advice there but..." "We're on!" " We're on!" "So this is something that you did not have the balance" " to do before?" " No." "Because of all the cycling and sport that I have done, the muscle memory has come back pretty quickly." "There seems to be a natural feeling for it." " But you have not had the bike out yet?" " No." "I have spoken to a few people about doing it," " but I don't think my balance is good enough yet." " Right." "OK." "I know what Steven's ultimate aims are." "They are big aims involving running and cycling and swimming and so on." "I have always been a very big goal-driven guy." "Emma's identified that pretty well." "I guess an aim for me would be for Steven to be walking more than he is using the chair." "That is an initial aim." " What does it make?" " A lollipop!" "But if relapsing remitting MS is caught in time, could it be stopped in its tracks?" "Holly Drewry was just 21 when she was diagnosed." "After giving birth to her daughter, Holly's condition deteriorated quickly." "I couldn't walk steadily." "I did not trust myself holding her in case I had a fall." "I was a new mum and I wanted to do it all properly." "My legs and MS was stopping me from being able to do it." "This all happened within a couple of months and then I had to get a wheelchair." "I got worse and worse." "I could not wash myself, cook." "I couldn't dress myself." "It was scary because I thought, where is it going to end?" "Standard drug and blood treatments for MS had failed for Holly." "It was when I was in the hospital having the plasma exchange, that Professor Sharrack said, "There is the stem cell option."" "If this doesn't work, nothing will." "The transplant involves a one-off cost of £30,000 - no more expensive than the yearly cost of some MS treatments which need to be taken for life." " This is when you was tiny." " Tiny!" "Holly had the experimental transplant and for her, the improvements were astonishing." "I started seeing changes within days of the stem cells being put back in." "I walked out of hospital," "I walked into the house and cuddled Isla." "I just cried." "I just cried and hugged Isla." "Yeah." "It was all a bit overwhelming." "Was it all just a dream what I've just done?" "Has the past month or so been a complete dream?" "Yeah, a miracle." "A miracle." "It is now two years since Holly's stem cell transplant, and she has come back to review her progress." "I will just show you this one." "This is a scan we did in 2013." "That was when you were about to have your treatment." "Left untreated, areas of active inflammation would cause permanent damage." "But now, they have all but disappeared." "The good news, that is when we go to the last scan, this is the scan which was done a few days ago." "You see all these little scars." "But you don't really see any evidence of active disease which is really good news." "Really, this is an indication that your MS is being quite dormant" " and you have not suffered further relapses." " Yes." "Hello!" "Holly's MS has been dramatically halted." "She will need to be monitored for years but the hope is the transplant will be a permanent fix." "When I was doing my training we had three treatments for multiple sclerosis." "To have a treatment which can reverse disability is really a major achievement." "Louise needs to remain in isolation after having received her stem cells." "She has used the time to plan for the future." "We have decided to get married in a year of my transplant birthday, which is 13th October." "And we have decided to get married in the village where we had our very first date." "Spot-on from a year." "To see that transition from where she was to where she is going to be is great." "I think that first birthday for me, I will have got over all the hair loss, started to rebuild my life, and I will feel the full benefit of the transplant." "After 18 days, Louise finally leaves the isolation unit." "Look at you!" "You've changed." "You look grown-up." " I'm not!" " You do!" "Your hair has changed and everything and you're wearing your grown-up jumper!" "Give me a cuddle." " I missed you." " I missed you too." "What are you doing?" "!" "Paul is back home, 12 days after his transplant." "Are we going for a walk?" "Eh?" "That will get you excited, mate, won't it?" "Well, back!" "I'll bang t'kettle on." "I have noticed little improvements and that." "If I get to 100% improvement recovery, I will be saying it is great, the best thing in the world." "When I was having the treatment, it is quite intense and it does knock you." "I would rather have done ten rounds with Mike Tyson than go through that." "But..." "I have done it." "I can see a difference in me." "The difference is you want to do a bit of walking." "Before it was like, oh, you know." "But you're walking a little bit better." "It is a lot more effortless now." "This is indeed a very potent treatment and time will tell whether it is a cure or not." "We need to have longer-term follow-up which perhaps goes into decades before we can say cure." "Here's to be year of Dad being out of chemotherapy and being well and healthy and being a good dad!" "Steven has reached his first transplant birthday." "He is out celebrating with his daughters." " Cheers to that." " Cheers!" "A year ago I couldn't even hold a fork, I could not eat." "Do you remember?" "Let's crack on." "Stem cell transplantation for MS is experimental and its long-term benefits unproven." "But if the international trial, which Sheffield is part of, is a success, then many more MS patients might be offered it in years to come." "The day you get the stem cell transfusion is called Day Zero." "It is a definitive line." "That was the previous part of your life." "This is now Day Zero of the rest of your life." "Back straight." "I was in a very dire place, within 365 days through this pioneering treatment, to get from that point to being here, words cannot describe it." "Good afternoon, Basil." " Good afternoon." " Nice to see you." " Hello, John." " This is very impressive." "Thank you very much." " This is marvellous." " I will sit down there." "How good's that?" "One year since your transplant." "Exactly." "It's been an incredible year." "The last time you came in, you came in your wheelchair." "You walked in today." "Steven is shown the results of his most recent scan." " You look hard and you see nothing." " Really?" "Today, you walking in indicating that you continue to get better is mirrored by the scan not showing evidence of active disease." "Good." "That is good to hear." "I'm sure you have heard about my surprise in the last few weeks as well." "I was out with the girls and there was a cycle hire place." "I went to speak to the guys who put the saddle on its lowest level, so I could stand on the bike without having to balance and I just pushed off." "The first couple of feet were wobbly and really hard to get my balance." "Go on, pedal, pedal, pedal!" "Within ten feet, my balance had recovered and I cycled all around the park." "Cycling is something I can now do." "I can swim, I can cycle and hopefully walking is the next big step."