“Researchers Find Way to Help Donor Adult Blood Stem Cells Overcome Transplant Rejection” – Science Daily Article
Margaret posted this story link over at the Multiple Myeloma Support Group (Facebook), which I continue to encourage you to join, that would be AMAZING if it pans out in reality.
As I have posted before in helping us to understand the differences between the autologous stem cell transplant (using your own stem cells for recovery) versus the allogenic stem cell transplant (using a related or unrelated donor stem cells). The Auto has a less than 3% morbidity at the big cancer centers while the Allo is over 30% morbidity due to a couple of issues that can occur, but in a nut shell, its a rejection of foreign matter in the body.
When I asked a physician why a leukemia patient always seems to do an allo, he told me that they couldn’t collect their own cells as they weren’t viable. The reason it’s done is that while mortality is high, they will succumb to the disease anyway, so the risk is worth it at that point.
In Arkansas/Huntsman, enough cells for six transplants is the goal (approximately 20 million stem cells). Leukemia is one of the potential side effects of the MM treatment. Having collected the patient’s stem cells in such volume allows for these institutions to treat a patient’s leukemia using their own cells, should they experience this side effect. I met two patients while in Little Rock who had both survived 10 years with their MM after tandem, but had both developed leukemia in the 10th year. Both were receiving another auto SCT to handle the leukemia. It is not common, but I suspect from the Director’s point of view, it is treatable if stem cells are saved so why not have that opportunity available to the patients he is treating for MM. Like many things with MM it was both frightening and heartening.
While these findings are still in the lab and much more will need to be done to move it into human trials, I suspect it will be leukemia patients first, and if they benefit, then it can move into the MM patient realm of those who are embarking on the allo route in their last ditch efforts to survive their disease.
“Using the increased number of cultured blood stem cells, the scientists were able to overcome the protein barrier that alerts the immune system to foreign material and significantly repopulated healthy cells in the rodent transplantation recipients.” Science Daily
It goes without saying, but I guess I should say it anyway, continuing research into the causes of MM and less toxic routes to a fix, outside of stem cell transplants, would be my continued hope. But in the meantime, perfecting it’s survival and positive outcome is a good thing.
