Stem cell therapy in cancer treatment

source:  National Cancer Institute 

Stem cell therapy in cancer treatment

The use of stem cell therapy in cancer treatment implies the revenue of the red bone marrow. The red bone marrow suffers from chemotherapeutic and radiation treatments. Since its intrinsic structures suffer, they need to be “updated.” For this, healthy stem cells are transplanted into the bone marrow.

What is a stem cell transplant done for?

With the help of stem cell therapy, it is possible to completely restore the normal process of hematopoiesis, destroyed by chemotherapy, radiation or leukaemia. Introduced intravenously, hematopoietic stem cells move through the bloodstream, settle in the patient’s bone marrow and give origin to new blood cells.

Many tens of thousands of patients receive such stem cell transplants annually in Germany. If you or your relatives need treatment abroad, with the assistance of Booking Health, it will be as comfortable as possible. Booking Health provides a full range of medical services, from quick preventive examinations and diagnostics in the best hospitals to comprehensive treatment and recovery. Moreover, the complex organization includes medical services and the arrangement of a trip to Germany at the most affordable prices.

 

How do stem cells help with oncology?

The patient’s own material is used in autologous transplantation during the treatment of neuroblastomas, testicular cancer, lymphomas, and brain tumours. In this case, hematopoietic stem cells are harvested from the patient in advance, frozen, and then introduced back. This allows you to treat cancer with high-dose chemotherapy that damages the bone marrow. After that, autologous transplantation restores blood formation without causing immune complications, such as the graft versus host reaction.

Donor material is transplanted to the patient during allogeneic transplantation, which is also applied in patients with leukaemia, aplastic anaemia and severe hereditary diseases (Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, Fanconi anaemia, Blackfan-Diamond anaemia, etc.). Hematopoietic cells for transplant are harvested from a close relative (usually a brother or sister) or a person selected using the donor registry. The meaning of the transplant is to replace the patient’s own blood formation with the donor one and thus cure the disease of the hematopoietic system.

Can stem cells become any specific cells?

The boom in stem cell research has created great confusion in the minds of many researchers who first addressed this topic. The plasticity of many populations of normal stem cells is significantly overrated. Some allegations are that stem cells of nerve tissue can turn into myocytes or hepatocytes, mesenchymal stem cells – into osteoblasts and cardiomyocytes, hepatic stem cells can turn into neurons and myocytes, etc. To acquire such a possibility of transdifferentiation, committed stem cells must dedifferentiate to an embryonic state to regain totipotency, that is, the ability to differentiate into any type of cell. A variety of examples of morphogenesis have shown that there is no complete dedifferentiation in nature and, probably, such a scenario of events is generally impossible.

Can stem cells be used to diagnose cancer?

The ability of stem cells to find a tumour can have practical importance. Thanks to the radioactive labels, it is possible to detect foci of malignant growth that can not be detected by other imaging methods. The patient's life and treatment effectiveness in oncology depends on how timely the malignant growth is diagnosed. Stem cells can be modified and used as vectors to save people affected by malignant neoplasms.

Chemotherapy and stem cells

A clinically manifested tumour usually has billions of malignant cells that must be destroyed. However, the population of tumour cells is heterogeneous, and the sensitivity of different tumour cells to cancer therapy is different. Therefore, overcoming resistance to antitumor pharmaceuticals in most tumour cells is essential. This can be achieved by introducing a dose of cytostatics ten times higher than the permissible standard dose. Such a sharp increase in the amount of the drug always leads to significant, often irreversible, damage to the hematopoietic cells of the bone marrow and disabling the function of hematopoiesis for many months.

If blood circulation is not restored, a person will die. The main method to overcome the haematological toxicity of chemotherapy is the transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells. In this case, hematopoietic stem cells are harvested from the donor or the patient himself. They are administered after the complete elimination of cytostatics from the body. Stem cell therapy in cancer treatment allows to relatively quickly and effectively restore the blood system’s function and save the patient.