Treatment Options for Leukemia (Part 2)
Stem Cell Transplantation
The conventional ways of treating cancer, such as chemotherapy and radiation, damage healthy cells and have many undesirable side effects. Doctors found a way around this problem by stem cell transplantation (SCT). Stem cells are blood-forming cells found in the bone marrow. In the course of cancer therapy, these stem cells are damaged.
In SCT, stem cells are harvested and preserved. In a nutshell, the patient’s (or closest kin’s, preferably a sibling) stem cells are harvested and preserved. The doctors can then give maximum doses of chemotherapy or radiation therapy to eliminate the leukemia cells.
Meanwhile, the patient’s stem cells are frozen and preserved until the chemotherapy course is over. The stems cells are then thawed and returned to the patient through transfusion.
Though truly amazing and brilliant, SCT is not without adverse effects. Long-term effects include sterility in men and women who have had high exposures to TBI (total body irradiation), endocrine malfunction, eye cataracts, and bone marrow toxicity.
(Source)