Regimen May Improve Cell Transplantation Outcomes For Older Adults With Blood, Bone Marrow Cancers

It has been shown that stem cell transplants haven't had a high success rate within older patients due to complications that arise due to the aging stem cells. This has led to problems because older patients who are diagnosed with heart and bone types of cancer are not typically successful in fighting it off. With predictions of an increase in older populations, this problems is one that scientists are striving to fix. One method that has shown signs of success and has given scientists hope is giving the patient a minimal treatment of radiation therapy and then transporting some bone marrow or stem cells. This has been shown to work because the lower dosage of chemo/radiation does not remove all of the bone marrow before the stem cell transplant.

I chose this article for a few reasons. The article we read about using stem cells in the heart and the complications due to old age was interesting to me and I found the situation similar to the one described in this article. Also, Dr. Wasser was talking about in class the other day about the need for organ donors. I am a registered bone marrow donor and believe in our country's need for bone marrow donors just as much as organ donors. Lastly, I hope to do cancer research after college; therefore, research including stem cells and bone marrow are important to me and crucial to my future studies.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/236956.php