Safer bone marrow transplants 'could revolutionise arthritis treatment'
Scientists have found a way of making bone marrow transplants much safer - a development that could have far-reaching consequences for the treatment ofarthritis and many other diseases. The research from the Stanford University School of Medicine in the US remains in its early stages, but could potentially accelerate progress towards curing a wide range of chronic conditions. A new frontier for blood stem cell transplantation Bone marrow transplantation is also known as blood stem cell transplantation and can be a powerful tool in providing a longer-term solution for various conditions. However, to successfully transplant blood stem cells, the patient's existing population of cells needs to be killed using chemotherapy or radiotherapy - a dangerous process that can cause organ damage and even death. To address this, the new study - published in the journal Science Translational Medicine - has identified a way of altering and blocking certain proteins to deplete blood-forming stem cells in mice without the need to use aggressive chemotherapy or radiotherapy at all. Moreover, it also proved possible to purify the donor tissue to ensure it contained only blood stem cells, while leaving out the immune cells from the donor that sometimes attack the tissue of the recipient. Wide-ranging benefits It is estimated that this approach, if replicated in humans, could cut the risk of death from blood stem cell transplant from 20 per cent to effectively zero, meaning any disease caused...
Source: Arthritis Research UK - Category: Rheumatology Source Type: news
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