stem cell benefits

what are the advantages of using somebodiesown cells to do the transplant versus having a relative or a sibling donate their theirstem cells the advantages of autologous stem cell transplantatin meaning that the patientis the donor or using their own stem cells is uh rapid engraftment meaning that the periodof low blood counts is only for about seven to ten days where as if a stem cells are usedfor from another person or a donor than the period of myloblation or period of low bloodcounts is for almost twenty to thirty days further more i think when you receive bloodstem cells or stem cells from a donor there is always a risk of graft versus host diseasemeaning that your immune system your body is not able to uh work with the stem cellsfrom a donor so the graft versus host disease

is a major complication of alogenaic stemcell transplantation which is usually not the case in patients who receive their ownstem cells are there any major disadvantages to using someone's own stem cells well thedisadvantages would be that the disease is not that you are infusing stem cells froma patient which are contaminated stem cells with tumor cells or contaminated with thesame protein producing cells so i think that is the major disadvantage that uh there isyou know and that's more of a problem for other diseases right sure that would be mynext question i i i'm certain it would depend on the type of disease somebody is sufferingfrom as you choose what is the best very best type of stem cell transplant there are blooddisorders and some types of leukemia where

the stem cells are actually the problem andthen giving back the same stem cells would not be a good treatment and then we definitelygo to uh look for other donors and what about if the ill person is a child would you stillconsider using their own stem cells or do you look for a donor children actually arevery good candidates for transplants and they in many cases can even get a transplant froma parnt children are more tolerant of foreign stem cells than adults are so they have alower incidence of the complications of graft rejection and graft versus host disease althoughkids tend to have good responses to chemotherapy fro blood diseases they also are very goodcandidates for transplants from don other donors dr. seldin i wonder if you might commenton the ice treatment that accompanies the

chemotherapy that most patients are horrifiedof so that's uh an interesting question in medical lingo we call it cryotherapy whichmeans freezing your mouth basically and it turns out that uh if you do that you preventblood flow to the mouth the chemotherapy doesn't get into the mouth and you have a much lowerincidence of mouth sores so it's probably the uh cheapest and most effective thing inall of medicine cheaper than taking a couple of tylenol or anything in terms of what helpspatients get through uh the side effects of these kinds of treatment because the alternativewould be mouth sores and all kinds of complications and they can be very painful people have troubleeating people get hospitalized and at least that complication of the transplant processis pretty much behind us uh and people are

uh much better from that point of view gratefulwhen it's over true absolutely this excerpt is brought to you by the massachusetts schoolof law