What Stem Cell Therapy Centers Hope To Achieve In Future

By Nancy Howard


Human endeavors have produced amazing advances in all fields but it is the medical advances that most people admire. After all, when one contracts a dread disease or suffers a terrible injury nothing else really matters. Killer diseases are now tamed and routinely treated. Organs are transplanted and even dread diseases can now be managed much more efficiently. Stem cell therapy centers say that their hopes for the future include further major breakthroughs that will change the face of medicine forever.

Bone marrow transplants are not a new and revolutionary treatment method. These transplants have been performed for some years for patients suffering from cancers related to the blood, such as leukemia. These cancer patients undergo chemo therapy and the chemicals kill all blood cells, including the healthy ones. In some cases, bone marrow transplants are performed to encourage new and healthy cells to grow but the success rate is questionable.

Many people think that bone marrow transplants can cure cancer. This is not the case. There is no cure for cancer, at least not yet. Researchers believe that, in time, transplants will indeed be a cure, not only for blood related cancers but many other types as well. Unfortunately, research continues at a snail pace because it is extremely expensive and the research processes are lengthy and complicated.

Finding a cure for cancer by using bone marrow transplants is just one of the fields attracting the attention of researchers. They also think that these transplants will be able to stimulate the growth of new brain cells. If this can ever be done, the devastation caused by debilitating diseases such as Alzheimer can be reversed. Patients with brain and spine injuries will also benefit.

Heart disease is also in the target of researchers. They think that eventually they will be able to use bone marrow transplants to not just regenerate, but to replace destroyed cells in the heart. Since heart disease is still one of the major killer diseases all over the world, advances in this direction will indeed affect many millions of lives. One can but hope, perhaps even pray.

Many people are excited about the possible benefits of bone marrow transplants but there are numerous critics. They accuse researchers of misleading the public and the sponsors of their research with false promises and unrealistic expectations. There is no evidence that even one such transplant has saved a live, they say. As a matter of fact, these transplants are dangerous and can shorten the life of patients.

Critics are particularly concerned about the fact that the cells used during these transplants are routinely harvested from the umbilical cords of unborn babies. This is a major ethical dilemma, they say. Not only is the life of the unborn baby endangered, but there is also the awful possibility that women will become pregnant for the sole purpose of selling the cells harvested.

Whether bone marrow transplants will produce the next miracle in the field of medicine remains to be seen. One thing is certain, however. If researchers ever achieve what they think is achievable then many millions of people will benefit. The nature of medicine will be changed forever.




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