Saturday, 24 March 2018

Stem Cell Treatment Centers Offer Hope To Cancer Patients

By Eric Davis


The mind boggles at the pace with which humankind races from one technological advance to the next. The field of medicine, for example, can now routinely treat diseases that were absolutely deadly just a few decades ago. Many other diseases that cannot yet be cured can at least be managed, increasing the life expectancy of millions of patients. Currently, stem cell treatment centers hope to offer the world its next major breakthrough against disease.

There is a lot of excitement about bone marrow transplants but this is not really new technology. These transplants have been performed for some years, but to date the only recipients of transplants were patients that suffer from blood related cancers. These patients routinely receive chemo therapy where all cells are indiscriminately destroyed. The bone marrow transplants aim to encourage the growth of new, healthy cells.

At present, bone marrow transplants do not effect a cure in cancer patients, but there is no doubt that they increase the life expectancy of those patients. Researchers are convinced that transplants will eventually cure blood related cancers and many other medical conditions too. Unfortunately, progress is extremely slow. Bone marrow transplants pose many potential dangers and numerous tests will have to be performed before trials on humans can even be contemplated.

Because the purpose of bone marrow transplants is to encourage the growth of new, healthy cells, scientists hope that this form of treatment will be effective in curing diseases and conditions that are caused by tissue or cell damage. They believe that it will become possible to reverse the damage caused to the brain by serious conditions such as Alzheimer and strokes. Other forms of brain damage may also one day be reversed.

The regeneration of tissue by growing new cells also raise high hopes that bone marrow transplants will one day be able to reverse damage done to the heart due to a variety of heart conditions. Heart diseases remains one of the major causes of death in developed countries. If bone marrow transplants truly succeed in treating some of these conditions, millions of patients will get a new lease on life.

All is not roses and sunshine, however. Research in this area has many enemies. There main concern is the fact that these transplants can use blood taken from the umbilical cords of babies yet to be born to substitute for real bone marrow. This, critics say, is an abomination that will lead to very serious abuse of human life, especially the lives of innocent infants not even born yet.

There are also many others that accuse researchers in this field of creating false hope of imminent results that will prove to be revolutionary. They point out that this is simply not true. Useful results are still many years in the future and critics say that scientists simply maintain the hype about the potential of bone marrow transplants in order to secure sufficient funds for ongoing research.

The fact remains that the dreams of bone marrow transplant researchers are exciting. If these treatment methods ever become reality, millions of people will benefit. One can only hope that ongoing research produce the results that the entire world is so eagerly anticipating.




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