Current Uses and Future Treatments
Blood stem cells are usually called Hematopoietic stem cells by the medical community. These are cells that are found in the blood that are able to grow from a current non-specific state into different blood cells like red cells, white cells or platelets.
Every human being has these cells–and not just in their blood, but in other areas of their bodies as well. Humans carry a storage of “blank cells” that reside in various tissues and organs of the body that, when those tissues or organs become injured or diseased, can grow into new healthy cells to help the body stay as healthy as possible. In recent years, scientists have been looking into these types of cells as a way to help treat a myriad of diseases and disorders.
One of the best ways to obtain blood stem cells is to collect them from either umbilical cord blood or a person’s blood marrow. Thanks to the increasing levels of cord blood donation, many doctors and patients are turning to umbilical cord blood as a source of blood stem cells. This is due largely to the fact that the collection of cord blood is non invasive and less painful to the patient than if he or she had to undergo a bone marrow transplant.
In the Spring 2008 issue of Paradigm Magazine (published by Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research), scientists found that paring cord blood cells with blood stem cells could actually increase the number of viable blood stem cells by as much as twenty times the amount they could create before the cord blood cells were introduced into the culture. This is an important development for the medical community because it means that they might be able to actually grow viable and healthy cells without needing as many “starter” cells.
Blood stem cells are most helpful in helping patients recover from treatment of blood cancers. Some doctors have found success by employing a method that involves extracting healthy stem cells from a patient and freezing them while the patient goes through his chemotherapy and radiation treatments. When the treatments are finished, the frozen stem cells are returned to the patient’s blood stream to grow into healthy blood cells. These new healthy cells not only help the patient recover from his procedures, they can help the body ward off the cancer’s advances. Even better, the blood cell transplant can be done as an outpatient procedure, which can help the patient recover far more quickly than if he had to endure a stay in the hospital.
Stem cell research is still very controversial–especially research and treatment that involves the use of embryonic stem cells. Adult stem cells, on the other hand, are proving to be useful–especially when their growth is aided by agents like cord blood cells!
