• Question: Has there been any cancer patients that have been treated with stem cells and made a full recovery ? if not what other ways can it be used?

    Asked by katiechoi to Kara on 21 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Kara Cerveny

      Kara Cerveny answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Hi katiechoi. As far as I know the only time that stem cells are used to treat cancer is when blood cancers are treated with bone marrow replacements. In these patients, their own blood stem cells (that mainly reside in the bone marrow) are removed by radiation treatment. Then the donor bone marrow, which contains stem cells are transplanted into the patient. This isn’t always a full recovery, and the patients have to take immune suppressing drugs to prevent any remaining immune cells from attacking the new cells.
      The other important fact to consider, is that one of the risk factors associated with stem cell therapies is that since stem cells retain their ability to proliferate, they could potentially cause cancer, or at least benign tumors to form. This is why research like my own, which was aimed at understanding how the environment around stem cells limits their proliferative capabilities, is so important.

Comments