Archive for the ‘stem cell benefits’ Category

Stem Cells for Arthritis Patients

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Arthritis has long been huge anomaly for medical researchers across the world, but it appears that a commendable step has been taken towards giving relief to patients who have long been reeling under the excruciating pain. It has been confirmed that as part of a collaborative research, a new therapy has been devised which can use adult stem cells to repair the damaged joints.

So far, millions of patients were dependent on non-invasive treatments such as painkillers and physiotherapy, but this is probably a novel means through which a lot could be done to cure the patients.

Though joint replacement surgery is being seen as a sure shot treatment, one has to go through a long ordeal before going for the surgery as the last possible option.

As of now, the team is looking for potential donors which could make things a lot easier for arthritis patients in terms of cost.

“This early experimental work is the first step on a journey that could significantly reduce the need for joint replacement operations”, said Prof Alan Silman, Medical Director of Arthritis Research UK.

As the research is getting the warranted attention, it’s being believed that this study if being extended could change the face of the disease and perhaps then nearly 8 million people in the UK would be able to get some relief.

 

Reported on Top News Arab Emirates – http://topnews.ae

Treating Advanced Breast Cancer with Adult Stem Cells

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

Reported by David Prentice, The Family Research Council

Stanford doctors have shown that women with advanced breast cancer show greater survival when treated with aggressive chemotherapy and their own adult stem cells.  Their study looked at long-term results for women with advanced, stage-4 breast cancer, who were treated 12-14 years ago with high-dose chemotherapy and their own, purified adult stem cells, compared to women who received chemotherapy and unpurified blood stem cells.

While the numbers of patients in this long-term study are small, the results are striking.  Five of the 22 women (23 percent) who received their purified adult stem cells are still alive, four of whom have no sign of disease.  Only seven of the 74 women (9 percent) who received the untreated cells are still alive, with five of those seven having no sign of disease.  Women who received their own purified adult stem cells had a median survival of 60 months, whereas those receiving unpurified stem cells had a median overall survival of 28 months.

Senior author Dr. Judith Shizuru said:

“Our study suggests that the high-dose therapy strategy can be modified to include the use of cancer-free purified blood stem cells to yield better overall outcomes in women with advanced breast cancer.”

The results were published online in the journal Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation.