Archive for the ‘Stem Cell Worx News’ Category

Increasing Number of Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Survivors in the United States

Sunday, August 4th, 2013

Advances in hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) have led to an increasing number of transplant survivors.

In order to adequately support their healthcare needs, there is a need to know the prevalence of HCT survivors. We used data on 170,628 recipients of autologous and allogeneic HCT reported to the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research from 1968 to 2009 to estimate the current and future number of HCT survivors in the United States.

Stacked cohort simulation models were used to estimate the number of HCT survivors in the US in 2009 and make projections for HCT survivors by the year 2030. There were 108,900 (range, 100,500-115,200) HCT survivors in the United States in 2009. This included 67,000 autologous HCT and 41,900 allogeneic HCT survivors. The number of HCT survivors is estimated to increase by 2.5 times by the year 2020 (242,000 survivors) and 5 times by the year 2030 (502,000 survivors). By 2030, the age at transplant will be <18 years for 14% of all survivors (N=64,000), 18-59 years for 61% survivors (N=276,000) and 60 years and older for 25% of survivors (N=113,000). In coming decades, a large number of individuals will be HCT survivors.

Transplant center providers, hematologists, oncologists, primary care physicians and other specialty providers will need to be familiar with the unique and complex health issues faced by this population.

Reference: http://www.bbmt.org/article/S1083-8791(13)00342-X/abstract

Tags: blood stem cells, Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation
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Stem Cell Transplants Clear HIV From Two US Patients

Friday, July 5th, 2013

Two cancer patients in Boston who were also infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) have no trace of the virus after receiving stem-cell transplants, suggesting they may have been cured of the Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome(AIDS) causing infection.

The two patients, treated at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, stopped HIV treatment after the transplants, which in other patients has opened the door for the virus to come roaring back. In one patient there was no sign of the virus 15 weeks after stopping treatment, while the other has gone seven weeks without HIV rebounding, according to results presented today at the International AIDS Society’s meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

The researchers led by Timothy Henrich of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital said it’s too early to conclude the two men have been cured and the virus may be lingering in their brains or gut. Still, their cases are similar to that of Timothy Brown, the so-called Berlin patient, who was the first person to be cured of HIV after getting a bone marrow transplant for leukemia in 2007.

While stem-cell transplantation is not a viable option for people with HIV on a broad scale because of its costs and complexity, these new cases could lead us to new approaches to treating, and ultimately even eradicating, HIV, Kevin Robert Frost, the chief executive officer of amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, which funded the study, said in a statement.

Researcher Timothy Henrich