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- Repair damaged tissue. One of the most common ways that stem cell treatment is used in disease is in cancer patients. Most cancer patients undergo high dose chemotherapy and radiation. These treatments are very useful to decrease tumor size or burden. However, chemotherapeutic agents are also known to harm the patient’s existing bone marrow, which is responsible for making blood cells in the body. With the use of a stem cell transplant (or bone marrow transplant) doctors can replace the bone marrow or stem cells lost during chemotherapy treatment. Additionally, stem cells hold a great amount of potential to help cure or treat other diseases. Because stem cells could potentially be programmed into a specific, differentiated cell type, stem cells could be used to replace damaged cells in other types of diseases. Ongoing studies are being performed to determine if stem cells could replace damaged cells in heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease and many others.
- Reduce inflammation. Another useful property of stem cells is their ability to naturally suppress the immune response. This makes them potentially useful in the treatment of inflammatory diseases and clinical trials are being performed to study their effects in diseases such as arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, inflammatory airway disease, multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases. Inflammatory diseases are currently treated with immune suppressive, anti-inflammatory drugs, which only work temporarily to reduce pain and inflammation. They can also have adverse side effects due to non-specific inhibition of the immune system. The interesting thing about certain types of stem cells (mesenchymal stem cells, MSCs) is that they specially locate to the inflamed region of the body to exert anti-inflammatory effects without affecting the overall immune system. One recent study found that MSCs could produce significant reduction in inflammatory proteins without long-term side effects.
- Tissue engineering. Possibly the most interesting potential use for stem cells to treat disease is in the possibility of growing complete organs from just a few cells. There are currently about 120,000 people on the waiting list for an organ transplant in the United States, with a new name being added to the list about every 10 minutes. Unfortunately, about 22 people die every day from lack of available organs for transplant. It is already known that pluripotent stem cells (stem cells that could potentially form any cell type in the body) can differentiate into lung cells, heart cells, liver cells and kidney cells. Researchers are currently attempting to find a way to allow those induced cell types to form whole, survivable organs, which may be used to fill the gap in transplant needs. Researchers have had some success in engineering tissue of the heart, liver and kidneys using stem cells in the lab. However, the transplantation of these tissues into animals has yet to done. Tissue engineering is an incredibly exciting field of research that could have a huge impact on human health in the future.
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