Detection of leukemia in a person makes that person and their family worried about the patient’s life; but most of the people are now-a-days treated and they are getting cured by different types of treatment. Blood cancer is one of the life-threatening diseases throughout the world. Although medical science had delivered us with different treatment so that we can fight with this disease. With the progressions in medical science, there is a persistent development which has provided a simple and successful treatment of malignant growth. Umbilical cord blood is used for stem cell therapy is the best treatment for blood cancer.
Leukaemia is caused by a series of rare mutations (changes) in certain genes. Whenever a mutated form of one of these genes may be inherited the individual is highly predisposed to develop leukaemia. Acute leukaemias are characterized by the production of abnormally elevated numbers of blood cells that do not function properly and often suppress the production of normal blood cells. Acute leukaemias usually require immediate and intensive treatment that is mainly dependent upon the type of leukaemia and various other things about a patient. The options of treatment mainly include steroids, chemotherapy or a rigorous process that includes high dose of chemotherapy that is followed by transplantation of healthy haematopoietic or blood stem cells.
High-dose of chemotherapy is used to kill the leukaemic cells and this process reduces the blood forming cells present in the bone marrow. These cells are then replaced by patients are transplanted with the haematopoietic stem cells. The cells which are being transplanted are taken from the umbilical cord blood. Scientists in Singapore found out a solution to this issue; they developed a chemical substance known as C7 in the laboratory which can help in the regeneration of stem cells in the cord blood. Some scientists did a research on this substance and found that this will act as a boon for cancer patients. They are also investigating various treatments that can reduce the time of recovery a patient is needed during transplantation.
In addition to this, another new technology is developing such as the production of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as well as producing HSCs by the direct conversion of different types of haematopoietic stem cells are being developed in laboratory. This is done to study the production and maintenance of the stem cells. These studies are done for gathering any kind of new information about the stem cells so that it can help in doing easy design, discover new tests and establishing therapies those are less toxic.
Hence from the above discussion it can be said that the researches those are currently going on might help in revolutionizing the shortcomings of the current treatment related to the stem cell transplantation and lack of proper or matched donors.