Sickle Cell Disease Reversed in Adults With Mini Stem Cell Transplants
December 10, 2009
(ChattahBox)—Sickle cell disease receives its name from the mutation in the hemoglobin gene, which causes red blood cells to have a “deflated” sickle-shaped appearance. Severe cases of the disease, also known as sickle cell anemia, can lead to stroke, severe pain, and damage to multiple organs, including the lungs, kidneys and liver. And often the treatment is worse than the cure. Traditional bone-marrow transplants require high doses of chemotherapy to wipe out the immune system, before cells can be transplanted, which causes severe side effects.
Now, a new method of treatment researchers call, a non-myeloablative or “mini” transplant, combined with an immune-suppressing drug called, rapamycin, not only offers a safer method of delivery, but completely reverses the disease in adults.
The phase I/II study was conducted by scientists from the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins. Ten participants ranging in age from 16 to 45, were given intravenous transplants of blood-forming stem cells.
The new delivery method allowed the patients’ immune systems to safely accept the transplanted stem cells.
“In mini-transplants, lower doses of medication and radiation are used to make room for the donor’s cells, the new source for healthy red blood cells in the patient,” read the study.
After treatment, nine of 10 patients showed normal red blood cells and reversal of organ damage caused by the disease. The patients’ bodies now carry the healthy stem cells together with the patients’ own cells.
The entire study can be found in the December 10 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
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Good news for Sickle cell anemia patients!Sickle cell anemia is a disorder of the blood caused by an inherited abnormal hemoglobin.So far this disease have no cure but now no patient of sickle cell anemia would suffer so long.Hope for good.
[...] (ChattahBox)—Sickle cell disease receives its name from the mutation in the hemoglobin gene, which causes red blood cells to have a “deflated” sickle-shaped appearance. Severe cases of the disease, also known as sickle cell anemia, can lead to stroke, …Read Original Story: Sickle Cell Disease Reversed in Adults With Mini Stem Cell Transplants – … [...]
if there are those that received this stem cell treatment .please contact me.
thank God for this breakthrough,can i get the e-mail address of the doctor in charge. i really need to establish contact with him/her.