Its not often that we get news on Stem Cells in Malaysia but I do think that ever since we've started highlighting the applications, many more doctors are beginning to speak out about the important work that they do.
I read yesterday in the Star about a little girl by the name of Siti who has undergone a peripheral blood stem cell harvest to help her 17 year old brother Muhammad, who was diagnosed 5 months ago with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (see Angel's story).
You can read Siti's story here but I thought that it would be good to pick up on a few key points in the article which supports our preemptive peripheral blood and cord blood stem cell banking service. Its all about providing options for yourself in the future.
The treating haematologist Dr. Ng Soo Chin describes the chances of finding a match within the family:
STEM CELL MATCH
"A blood test, called HLA typing, is done to test whether a potential donor is a match. “There is a 25% chance of a sibling being a match to the patient,” Dr Ng notes. However, parents and half-siblings are usually not such good matches. "
I thought that it was a very well written article and Dr. Ng points out clearly that bone marrow harvesting- which is painful and very unpopular- is on a decline and that now peripheral blood stem cell harvesting is the way to go.
NO MORE PAINFUL BONE MARROW
"Not too long ago, the idea of donating stem cells frightened many people, not least because it required general anaesthesia and painful extraction of the stem cells directly from the bone marrow. Now, 90% of stem cell transplants use peripheral harvesting, instead of bone marrow,” Dr Ng assures. Peripheral harvesting means that the stem cells are collected from the blood stream in a procedure called apheresis. "
Peripheral blood stem cell collection is much preferred over bone marrow because doctors can be assured of a decent harvest. Very often bone marrow extractions require a lot of manipulation and may not obtain a reliable amount of cells for a transplant. Clotting of the blood is often one of the problems, a long with trauma bleeding, anaesthetic risk and patient discomfort.
PERIPHERAL BLOOD STEM CELLS - A VERY SAFE PROCEDURE
Dr. Ng says: “It’s like blood donation, except that it takes longer. However, the actual volume of blood that you donate is only about 50-100ml,” he explains, insisting that this is a very safe procedure.
And he also describes why using one's own stem cells are preferred, although this option is not always available:
When the patient is both the donor and the recipient of the stem cells, there are fewer risks involved – namely, no graft-versus-host disease, no immunosuppression needed and fewer infections.
TRANSPLANT ALREADY PERFORMED
Siti's stem cells had already been transplanted into her brother at the time of the publication and I do hope that he recovers and tells his story so that others may also know how a matching set of stem cells was critical in making the procedure possible.
StemLife provides stem cell collection and banking from the peripheral blood for healthy individuals and families. We also provide services for patients seeking treatment in collaboration with qualified medical specialists.
Please feel free to call us for a no obligation consultation at +603 2163 8800 or at 012 2050 165. We'd be happy to help.
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