What is stem cell therapy?
Stem cell therapy is a revolutionary medical procedure that uses stem cells to treat many different diseases and chronic conditions.
contactStem cell therapy is a revolutionary medical procedure that uses stem cells to treat many different diseases and chronic conditions.
contactThe best way to describe stem cells is to say that they are the body’s ‘master cells’, the raw material from which other cells are created.
In the body – and under the right laboratory conditions – stem cells can be grown and nurtured, and in the process the stem cells divide: these are called ‘daughter cells’. These daughter cells then either become a new stem cell or take the form of cells with a specific function: Blood cells, brain cells, muscle cells – all the functional cells of the body.
The advantage of stem cell research is that scientists have been able to observe this process and better understand how and why diseases develop. They also discovered that by growing new stem cells and targeting them to a specific cell – a process done in specialised laboratories – they can obtain new active cells that can serve as replacements for damaged cells in many parts of the body. These cells then help regenerate and repair damaged tissue, hence the term “regenerative medicine”.
Stem cells can be taken from the umbilical cord blood, which is the most popular method of collection, to be grown in laboratories for stem cell therapy. However, some therapies also require adult stem cells, which are usually obtained from bone marrow. Let us talk about how the new cells get into the body.
Stem cell therapy is a major breakthrough in the medical world and can be used to treat many different diseases and conditions that are due to cell and tissue damage. The fact that the daughter cells can be ‘directed’ to specific cell types gives the method more variability. Below are some of the diseases that can be successfully treated with stem cell therapy.
For example, the cost of an angiography is $47,000 in the US, $13,000 in Singapore, $11,000 in India and $10,000 in Thailand, while it is $5,000 in Turkey. Similarly, heart valve surgery costs $150,000 in the US and $17,000 in Turkey. Moreover, the waiting time for surgery is a maximum of two weeks, excluding transplantation, but in Western countries the process can take up to 18 months.
Some forms of cancer can be treated with stem cell therapy. The main cancers for which this type of treatment is used are leukaemia and lymphoma, although it can also be used for certain other types. These cancers are blood-related cancers, so the cells are induced to become blood cells and regenerate the damaged or mutated blood cells that cause the cancer.