What is Cell Treatment?
What is cell treatment?
Cell treatment is a form of cancer treatment that uses live cells to fight or treat a
disease. These may come from the patient’s own body farmerscoopelevator, or they may be derived from
a donor. They may be re-engineered to be more effective at killing or destroying
cancer cells, or they may be modified to trigger the body’s immune system to fight
the cancer.
CAR T-cell therapy is an example of a cell therapy that aims to modify the body’s
immune system to kill or destroy tumor cells and other abnormal cells in the blood.
This type of treatment has been shown to be a promising approach to treating blood
cancers like leukemia and lymphoma.
Bone marrow transplants are another type of cell treatment that involves replacing
the bone marrow with new, healthy cells from a donor. This is usually done after
chemotherapy has destroyed the body’s bone marrow and left the person with
leukemia or other blood diseases.
Targeted therapy is a cancer treatment that targets specific genes and proteins that
promote the growth of certain types of cancers. It can be used to prevent cancer,
reduce the size of a tumor or relieve symptoms such as pain and nausea.
It can also be used to kill tumor cells in other areas of the body. Using this approach,
patients with cancers of the breast, kidney, lungs and bowel can be treated without
having to remove these organs.
Stem cell treatment is a type of cell therapy that uses stem cells, which are the cells
that can grow and differentiate into different kinds of tissue. These can be
hematopoietic stem cells, which produce red blood cells, white blood cells or
platelets; mesenchymal stem cells, which make bones, cartilage and other tissues;
and lymphocytes, which are the immune cells that help the body defend itself
against infection.
Other cell therapies, such as vaccines and NK cells, use immune cells that can
protect the body against cancers or other diseases. These cells can be sourced from
the patient’s own blood or from a donor, depending on what is needed for a
particular treatment.
They can be re-engineered to attack cancer cells, or they can be given in large
quantities to boost the immune system’s ability to fight cancer. This approach has
been successful in treating many types of cancers and other diseases, including
autoimmune disorders and neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease,
Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.
In addition to these more traditional forms of cell therapy, there are a number of
newer treatments that have been used in clinical trials to treat various diseases. For
instance, one study showed that fetal pigs’ bone marrow cells are effective in
treating a patient with Parkinson’s disease.
There is a growing debate about the ethical implications of fetal marrow cell therapy.
Although the procedure has been used to help people with a range of illnesses, the
use of human fetal stem cells is controversial because of the ethical issue of cloning
embryos. In addition, the procedure is not yet well supported in clinical studies to
show that it is a valid form of cell treatment for patients with chronic diseases.