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From http://www.infoaging.org/b-stem-8-r-marr.html
Work at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle looked at
the clinical application of stem cell transplants. Stem cell transplants
are employed for patients with a variety of cancers, but they are not easy
for patients to tolerate and can cause many adverse effects. Patients
typically undergo total body irradiation and high dose chemotherapy to
eradicate their cancers before they receive the stem cell transplants.
This is toxic and especially hard for older patients to tolerate. The
Seattle researchers used lower doses of radiation and chemotherapy and
then gave the patients the stem cell transplants. Included in the study
were 45 patients with an average age of 56 who were suffering from such
diseases as acute and chronic leukemia, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma. They were followed for over a year. Survival for those with
chronic leukemia was about 66%. The success rate led the researchers to
conclude that the high dose chemotherapy and radiation might not be the
cause of the eradication of the cancer, but that in fact the new
population of stem cells might also be contributing to the elimination of
the remaining cancer cells. These more tolerable stem cell treatments are
called mini-transplantations, and these initial results are promising
enough that research will continue in this area.
Updated and reviewed: April 24, 2003 |
