Stem cells are the “master cells” within the body because they can grow into any needed type of specialized cell in one’s body. As cancer treatment advances, these cells are proving to be a lifesaver for many people diagnosed with blood cancers like leukemia, myeloma and lymphoma.
MGM Cancer Institute’s hemato-oncologist Doctor Gopinath explains that stem cells play the role of making all blood cells by producing platelets, white blood cells and red blood cells. Each of these types of cells plays a critical role in survival. For example, white blood cells fight infections while red blood cells transport needed oxygen to all parts of the body. A malfunction in any of these blood cell types can be life-threatening, he adds.
Blood cancers typically start in one’s bone marrow. This is the very location where stem cells are found and grow into different types of blood cells. When the bone marrow is compromised, it becomes hard for the body to generate new blood cells. To compound matters, cancer treatments like radiation therapy and chemotherapy targeting blood cancer often destroy not just the cancerous cells in the bone marrow but also healthy stem cells. This impacts the process through which new blood cells are formed, and this puts the health of the patient at increased risk.
Once a patient is no longer able to form new blood cells, stem cell transplants become the only viable way to enable the patient’s body to resume this vital function. In such cases, a compatible donor is sought and once a match is found, the donor provides stem cells that are then infused into the patient.
Once those donor stem cells get into the bone marrow of the patient, they perform two key roles. First, they restart the patient’s ability to create new blood cells, which offers an opportunity for the patient to survive. Secondly, donor stem cells actively destroy the cancer cells that remained within the bone marrow of a patient. In this way, the patient not only gets rid of cancerous cells but also resumes normal blood cell production.
The challenge usually faced is that it isn’t always possible to find a relative of a patient that is a match for stem cell transplantation. In such cases, a matching donor is the only way to get the needed stem cells to transplant into the patient.
This is where organizations that maintain registries of donors come in. They test donors and keep their HLA (human leucocyte antigen) data so that when patients register to find a donor, this data is checked to select a volunteer that matches with the patient. A positive match enables doctors to infuse the donated stem cells into the patient and the patient is monitored within a hospital to assess how well the donated stem cells are working.
Stem cell therapy has proved to be a life-saver for many blood cancer patients. However, not all cancers can be treated using stem cell infusions. This where the work of entities like Calidi Biotherapeutics Inc. (NYSE American: CLDI) comes in. These firms invest heavily in developing other treatment protocols, such as immunotherapy, to help a patient’s immune system to combat the cancer that is afflicting them.
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