The possible alternatives to bone marrow transplant

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AP Photo/Agapito Sanchez, Baylor College of Medicine

MONTREAL Finding a donor for a stem cell transplant is perhaps one of the most difficult things for a cancer patient.

This is because stem cells are one of the few things that patients cannot rely on their immediate family to donate, according to to Doctor Silvy Lachance, Director of the stem cell transplant program at Hpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont.

Of course, we first look within the family, she said.

But there is only 25 per cent chance of identifying a donor. If we dont find a donor within the family, we try the international donor registry.

According to the National Cancer Institute, bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell transplantations are most commonly used to treat leukemia, lymphoma, neuroblastoma (a cancer that affects mostly infants and children) and multiple myeloma.

While they wait for a compatible donor, patients will be assigned a conditioning regiment, which may include radiation.

This conditioning regiment will be followed by the infusion of stem cells that are compatible with the recipient, said Lachance.

Yet, for most ethnic minorities or anyone of mixed-birth, the chances of finding an anonymous donor remain very difficult.

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The possible alternatives to bone marrow transplant

Brave cancer battler Ulrika in race against time to find stem cell donor

Brave Ulrika Dandekar needs a life saver.

The 21-year-old from Solihull was given the devastating news she had a rare type of blood cancer, called Anaplastic Lymphoma, just just three months ago.

And she knows without a stem cell transplant she will not survive.

Now a desperate search has been launched for a donor but the odds are stacked against Ulrika, with just one in 125,000 likelihood of finding a match because of her Asian background.

Her emotional plea for help comes at the start of National Transplant Week on Monday.

When you are in my position, desperately in need of a donor, and you are told the statistics its devastating, said Ulrika, who had dreams of becoming a doctor.

I have a six per cent chance of surviving. When I found this out I couldnt stop crying... you start wondering whether you will get better.

You hear your parents talking about your cancer to friends and how its growing faster than the drugs are working.

I am a 21-year-old who should be out studying, working, partying, holidaying and discovering myself. But Im not. Instead I am struggling, crying, hurting, forever waiting.

Solihull cancer patient Ulrika Dandeka

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Brave cancer battler Ulrika in race against time to find stem cell donor

Special Harvard Commentary: How Stem Cells Help Treat Human Disease

Last reviewed and revised on May 20, 2013

By Anthony L. Komaroff, M.D. Brigham and Women's Hospital

Both adult and umbilical cord stem cells already are used to treat disease.

Adult stem cells:

For many years, doctors have used adult stem cells successfully to treat human disease, through bone marrow transplantation (also known as hematopoietic stem cell transplantation). Most often, this treatment is used to treat cancers of the bloodlymphomas and leukemias. When all other treatments have failed, the only hope for a cure is to wipe out all of the patients blood cellsthe cancerous ones and the healthy onesand to give a patient an entirely new blood system. The only way to do this is to transplant blood stem cellscells that can reproduce themselves indefinitely and turn into all types of specialized blood cells.

Here's how it's done. First, the doctors need to collect blood stem cells from a patient's bone marrow, and let them multiply.

Second, the patient is given a dose of chemotherapy that kills all of the cancer cells a dose that, unfortunately, also kills the cells in the patient's bone marrow.

Third, the blood stem cellsthe cells designed to give the patient a whole new blood systemare given to the patient through an intravenous catheter. Hopefully, the blood stem cells then travel through the blood to the bone marrow, where they take up residence and start to make a new blood system.

Where do the blood stem cells come from? Most of the time, they come from the patient himself. They are sucked out of the patients bone marrow through a needle, or taken from the patients blood (some blood stem cells travel in the blood). So the blood stem cells are outside the patients body, growing in a laboratory dish, when the patient is given the chemotherapy that kills all the blood cells still inside the body.

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Special Harvard Commentary: How Stem Cells Help Treat Human Disease

Bone marrow transplants can reverse adult sickle cell disease

This image provided by the National Institutes of Health shows red blood cells in a patient with sickle cell disease at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md.AP Photo/National Institutes of Health

This image provided by the National Institutes of Health shows red blood cells in a different sickle cell patient, after a bone marrow transplant at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md.AP Photo/National Institutes of Health

Bone marrow transplants can reverse severe sickle cell disease in adults, a small study by government scientists found, echoing results seen with a similar technique used in children.

The researchers and others say the findings show age need not be a barrier and that the technique may change practice for some adult patients when standard treatment fails.

The transplant worked in 26 of 30 adults, and 15 of them were even able to stop taking drugs that prevent rejection one year later.

"We're very pleased," said Dr. John Tisdale, the study's senior author and a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health. "This is what we hoped for."

The treatment is a modified version of bone marrow transplants that have worked in kids. Donors are a brother or sister whose stem cell-rich bone marrow is a good match for the patient.

Tisdale said doctors have avoided trying standard transplants in adults with severe sickle cell disease because the treatment is so toxic. Children can often tolerate it because the disease typically hasn't taken as big a toll on their bodies, he said.

The disease is debilitating and often life-shortening; patients die on average in their 40s, Tisdale said. That's one reason why the researchers decided to try the transplants in adults, with hopes that the technique could extend their lives.

The treatment involves using chemotherapy and radiation to destroy bone marrow before replacing it with healthy donor marrow cells. In children, bone marrow is completely wiped out. In the adult study, the researchers only partially destroyed the bone marrow, requiring less donor marrow. That marrow's healthy blood cells outlast sickle cells and eventually replace them.

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Bone marrow transplants can reverse adult sickle cell disease

Saving Sabrina: double umbilical cord transplant

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) --

From playing Uno to dancing with her sibling, you would never have guessed that just last year 15-year-old Sabrina Couillard was fighting for her life.

"I was getting really skinny. I was getting bruises everywhere," Couillard told ABC30.

She was diagnosed with leukemia.

"I just broke down (and) cried," Sabrina's mom, Marta Gonzalez told ABC30.

Her only hope for a cure was a bone marrow transplant, but doctors couldn't find a match from a family member. That's when her doctor, Kamar Godder, turned to an alternative stem cell source: the umbilical cord.

"We knew that when you give it to somebody who is heavier, a heavier child or adult it will not quote unquote take," Kamar Godder, MD, Pediatric, Hematologist/Oncologist, Miami Children's Hospital, told ABC30.

Couillard's doctor gave her a double umbilical cord transplant.

"Initially the thought was just to give more of (the) cells," Dr. Godder explained. "Eventually only one will take over, that's the interesting thing."

Dr. Godder says that earlier studies have shown that cell count is the most important factor after degree of match for succesful transplant.

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Saving Sabrina: double umbilical cord transplant

Special birthday present: Stem cell donor returns to Goltry

GOLTRY, Okla. A Goltry-area woman is back on Oklahoma soil after traveling to Milwaukee to give her brother a special birthday present.

Jeni Sumner was the only match among family members tested to donate stem cells to her younger brother, who was diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia last year.

Ed Dees cancer went into remission last October but returned earlier this year. Sumner said Dees doctors felt a stem cell transplant would be the best treatment.

Sumner spoke by phone about the events of the past week, as she prepared to return to Oklahoma on Thursday morning.

The transplant began at 2:07 p.m. Tuesday Dees birthday and took about an hour, she said.

We had a little birthday party for him and then he got my present, Sumner said.

Prior to the transplant, Dee went through chemotherapy and had a conditioning treatment, which Sumner said entailed the doctors wiping out his immune system and blood levels.

Sumner had to give herself injections over four days to make her bone marrow produce more stem cells and push them into her blood.

Those went really well, she said.

The stem cell retrieval process was on Monday.

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Special birthday present: Stem cell donor returns to Goltry

Health minister 'perplexed' by Stamina order

Court in Catania tells Brescia hospital to perform treatment

(ANSA) - Brescia, June 24 - Italian Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said she was "perplexed" Tuesday after a court in Catania ordered hospital authorities in Brescia to administer the controversial Stamina stem-cell treatment. The Catania order followed earlier orders from courts in Pesaro and Venice for the Brescia hospital to administer the treatment, which has been largely discredited and according to some investigations, actually harmful. Lorenzin said that such court orders undermine Italy's image internationally. "I am perplexed by what is happening, it is bizarre and undermines the image of Italy," as a nation that follows science-based treatments. She said strong action from government and parliament will be needed "for the protection of patients and their families". The Brescia Civic Hospital said Tuesday that it had started to search for doctors and nurses willing to administer the treatment as ordered by the Catania court. Stamina's credibility has long been suspect, and last fall the health ministry ruled that the Stamina Foundation would no longer be allowed to test the treatment on humans. The foundation was also stripped of its non-profit status after a study found its treatment was "ignorant of stem-cell biology". Recent investigations have shown risks of the treatment range from nausea to cancer, and as many as one-quarter of all patients treated have experienced "adverse effects". The head of the foundation, Davide Vannoni, may face indictment. In April, after study results became known, hospitals in Italy announced they had suspended the stem-cell treatment program. Lorenzin said investigators are raising serious allegations against Stamina and members of the Stamina foundation, and courts should think carefully before overriding that and ordering the treatment. But support from some patients who have used or requested the treatment remains strong. In early June, a court in the central Marche region ruled that toddler Federico Mezzina could receive Stamina treatment for Krabbe disease. The Stamina treatment involves extracting bone-marrow stem cells from a patient, turning them into neurons by exposing them to retinoic acid for two hours, and injecting them back into the patient. Supporters of the therapy thought it could be a cure for fatal degenerative nerve diseases such as spinal muscular atrophy, while detractors said it was devoid of scientific merit. A panel of experts appointed by Italy's health ministry said in January it found the therapy seriously lacking in both premise and practice. Their report cited "serious imperfections and omissions in the Stamina protocol, including conceptual errors and an apparent ignorance of stem-cell biology".

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Health minister 'perplexed' by Stamina order

Cancer survivor follows his dream of launching a craft beer business

JEHAD HATU has had chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant and a 13-hour operation during his two-year cancer fight.

But the 26-year-old says living with stage three testicular cancer has not left him disheartened. Instead, it has given him the push to follow his dreams of launching a craft beer business. When the Evening times first told Jehad's story in November 2012, he had just completed a course of chemotherapy and was preparing for surgery.

However, the former bar and restaurant worker's health deteriorated and medics feared he would never recover.

Jehad, who lives in Glasgow's South Side, said: "It's just one of those things. Sometimes life throws you an unexpected curveball."

After four months of lower back-ache, he was diagnosed in August 2012 with the illness, which had spread to his lymph nodes, his liver, his intestines and his lungs . Following his second chemotherapy course he underwent a stem cell transplant, and last october doctors performed surgery to remove the tumours from his body.

the surgery was supposed to last seven hours - but he was under the knife for nearly 13 hours after doctors discovered there were more lumps than they thought.

Some tumours were too close to his nervous system or in risky locations, like his lungs, and could not be taken out.

"When they went inside and looked at some tumours they were too close to certain nerves," Jehad said.

"So they had to get some other experts from different fields in the hospital to come in and look at them and make a decision right then and there.

"Plus, I think there were more tumours than they had expected. they didn't see them on the scan."

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Cancer survivor follows his dream of launching a craft beer business

Cambridgeshire charity Alzheimer's Research UK unveils 100m dementia funding package – including new stem cell …

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Friday 20 Jun 2014 1:26 AM

Written byADAM LUKE

A Cambridgeshire-based charity has pledged 100 million for dementia research on a day when world health leaders gathered in London to discuss investment into the condition.

Great Abingtons Alzheimers Research UK has devised a new five-year campaign called Defeat Dementia which aims to grow the research field and accelerate progress towards new treatments and preventions.

The announcement coincides with a London summit, called the Global Dementia Legacy Event, hosted by Prime Minister David Cameron six months after a G8 summit in the city on the topic, when members set a target of finding a cure or treatment by 2025.

The charitys campaign is the largest ever UK charity commitment to dementia research and will see 100 million spent on diagnosis, prevention and treatment initiatives relating to Alzheimers and other dementias.

There will be a new 2 million stem cell research centre a collaboration between researchers at Cambridge Universitys Gurdon Institute and University College London (UCL) to understand the causes of Alzheimers and screen potential new treatments, along with a network of Drug Discovery Institutes housed in academic centres in the UK and beyond.

A 20 million Global Clinical Development Fund is also being set up to support phase I and II clinical trials.

Dr Rick Livesey, who works at the Gurdon Institute and uses stem cell techniques to better understand Alzheimers, said the Alzheimers Research UK Stem Cell Research Centre will take skin cells donated by people with Alzheimers and turning them into working nerve cells in the laboratory for further study.

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Cambridgeshire charity Alzheimer's Research UK unveils 100m dementia funding package - including new stem cell ...

Cord blood infusion saves woman's life

LOS ANGELES (KABC) --

Amanda Canale doesn't take time with her daughter and niece for granted. She's just happy to feel good.

"I've been in the hospital, and I've been sick my whole life," Amanda said.

Amanda was born with a rare blood disorder that required daily shots.

"Basically, I have no white blood cells," Amanda said. "I have no immune system at all."

At 23, she developed leukemia and was given two weeks to live. She desperately needed a bone marrow transplant, but family members weren't matches. Her doctor suggested an umbilical cord blood transplant.

"The cord was a perfect match and it was available, so it was the right solution for her," Edward Agura, MD, Medical Director of Bone Marrow Transplantation, Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas, said.

Cord blood contains stem cells that regenerate. Mothers of newborns can save their child's own blood or donate it. More than 30,000 transplants have been performed worldwide. However, because the blood comes from a tiny newborn, there's not much of it.

"The cord blood is rare, precious and few, and yet is more potent in its ability to grow," Dr. Agura said.

Now, doctors at Baylor are treating patients by combining cord blood from multiple donors. They've found this increases the number of stem cells and provides faster recovery. Amanda's transfusion was from a baby whose mother donated six years earlier. The procedure completely cured her cancer and blood disorder.

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Cord blood infusion saves woman's life