Stem cell therapy: New prospects and hope in medical science
Stem cell therapy is a medical procedure that involves replacing and repairing of damaged tissues resulting from any disease or injury by inserting new adult stem cells. The stem cells are able to self-renew and repair by generating tissues that replace the dead or damaged tissues in the diseased or injured areas in the body. Most of the researchers and medical practitioners claim that this therapy registers minimal refutation risks and side effects. Most of the therapies are at their tentative experimental stages and are both costly and controversial. However, bone-marrow transplantation has achieved remarkably and has been proved as a notable exception in this therapy.
Moreover, many researchers predict that adult and embryonic stem cells will soon be able to come up with a cure for diseases and ailments like cancer, cardiac failure, Celiac disease, muscle damage, Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders, Huntington's disease, Type 1 diabetes mellitus, etc. Stem cell therapy has not yet been entirely applied clinically and is still under research and development phase. However, there has been evident usage of bone-marrow and umbilical-cord blood stem cells in cases of cancer conditions like leukaemia and lymphoma.
It is also claimed that stem cell therapy has the potential to cure ailments like brain damage due to stroke and traumatic brain injury that cause cell death, brain degeneration caused due to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease, Heart damage or failure, and spinal-cord injury. Gene therapy strategies also seem a lot promising in treating tumours. This technique has shown great results in treatment of dogs so far. Some researchers claim that the cure to cancer lies in holding back the increase or multiplication of cancer stem cells. Unlike the chemotherapy, contemporary cancer treatments are designed to kill only the cancer cells and not all the cells overall.
It is also predicted that stem cell therapy can cure many other diseases with the help of hematopoiesis or blood-cell formation by using both hematopoietic adult stem cells and embryonic stem cells. Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) can also generate fully mature human red blood cells. Other deficiencies like baldness, dental deformations, hearing ailments and deafness, blindness and vision impairment, neural and behavioural birth defects, infertility, injuries and wounds related to orthopaedics and Diabetes can also be cured using the stem cell therapy.