Most of the body’s specialized cells cannot be replaced by natural processes if they are damaged or diseased. Stem cells can be used to generate healthy and functioning specialized cells.
This can also replace diseased or dysfunctional cells. This replacement of diseased cells with healthy cells, called cell therapy. There are several stem cell therapies which are routinely used to treat disease. These include:-
(i) Bone marrows stem cell transplant:
This is used to treat leukemia and other types of cancer, as well as various blood disorders. Leukemia results when leukocytes begin to grow and function abnormally becoming cancerous. Successful treatment for leukemia depends on getting rid of all the abnormal leukocytes in the patient’s, in a bone marrow transplant, the patient’s bone marrow stem cells are replaced with those from healthy, and matching donor. To do this, all of the patient’s existing bone marrow and abnormal leukocytes are first killed using a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. Next, a sample of donor bone marrow containing healthy stem cells is introduced into the patient’s blood stream.
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(ii) Peripheral blood stem cell transplant:
While most blood stem cells recide in the bone marrow but a small number is also present in the blood stream. These multipotent peripheral blood stem cells can be used just like bone marrow stem cells to treat leukemia, other cancers and various blood disorders. This can be obtained from drawn blood, so earlier to collect than bone marrow stem cells.
Apart from these, stem cells have potential treatment capacity for some deadly diseases such as brain damage, cancer, spinal cord injury, muscle damage, heart damage, baldness, missing teethe etc.