Our bustling lives are an epitome
of the human splendor as well as the challenges we have instituted for
ourselves. One such challenge is being healthy! Good health is undoubtedly the
germ of optimism, which is rarely found in the modern lifestyle. While we have
managed to run ahead of our needs, even to the extent of surpassing our wants,
the newfound lifestyle has brought a decline in the overall health and
well-being of our society. Factors like imbalanced diet, junk food, exposure to
toxic content, polluted atmosphere are to name a few, which have led to lethal
diseases like cancer having devastating effects on one's body in a long run, if
not instant to be propitious. Thankfully, our modern healthcare facilities have
not disappointed us at all. Institutes like Apollo hospitals and similar
research and healthcare organizations have left no stone unturned to come up
with modern healthcare facilities touching and soothing millions of lives
daily.
We have seen times when a number
of hematological disorders like leukemia (cancer of blood), beta thalassemia
(genetic blood disorder), severe aplastic anemia (bone marrow does not produce
sufficient new cells to replenish blood cells) etc. were invariably fatal, and
there was no cure for them. Fortunately, our modern and well-equipped medical
system is advancing with a great pace, and one such development is the use of
"stem cell transplantation" technique which has arisen hopes for
fighting such acute medical conditions.
Stem cell transplantation is an
upcoming and a revered field in modern medicine. It involves the infusion or
injection of healthy stem cells into the body to replace the damaged or
diseased cells. Stem cell transplantation can be of three types depending from
where cells have been used; as autologous transplantation (cells from your own
body), allogenic stem cell transplantation (cells from a donor) or syngenic
transplantation (cells from identical twin). Also, the stem cell
transplantation is a general term and it can be called specifically by
different names such as bone marrow transplant, peripheral blood stem cell
transplant or an umbilical cord blood transplant depending on the source of the
stem cells. Traditionally, donated organs or tissues were substituted for
damaged or dysfunctional ones. However, the sad part of this story was that
number of people waiting for transplantation outnumbered the number of
available donors. As a result, people died awaiting transplants. Here, stem
cells have a great potential to offer as a source of replacement to treat
various diseases and reduce the morbidity and mortality of such awaiting
patients.
The stem cells have many
current applications for treating various diseases which include severe burns,
type I diabetes, aplastic anemia, and its potential to treat many more diseases
in the future such as neurological disorders (including Parkinson's and
Alzheimer's) is being researched upon and surely it will pave the way for
treating many other diseases. According to Lalit Kumar, professor of medical
oncology at AIIMS, stem cell transplants have shown an around 50% of success in
treating certain kinds of cancer and even a higher around 70 – 80% of success
in treating other diseases like beta thalassemia, aplastic anemia.
India has a few centers/hospitals
where stem cell transplantation can be done as per the needs. One such
prestigious center is Apollo hospitals (http://www.apollohospitals.com/cutting-edge.php).
This hospital (Dr. Chirag Shah, Apollo International hospitals) is known to
have successfully done the first autologous stem cell transplant for acute
myeloid leukemia, and first allogenic stem cell transplant for leukemia in
private sector of Gujarat.
Today, stem cell transplantation
do offer hope for effective treatment with infinite possibilities in modern day
healthcare. Moreover, stem cells can be used for research purposes for
screening new drugs before being used on humans. They can even act as a testing
model without risking the health of the volunteer. The continued research will
make a way for the more incurable diseases and disorders, and time will witness
more and more success stories of stem cell therapies, touching and reassuring
more lives.
