This is known as an autologous transplant(Bone Marrow 3). This form of transplant can be used for many types of patients. These include patients with chronic myeloid leukemia , some patients with acute leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma and many types of solid tumors including breast and testicular cancer.
Stem cells collected from an autologous transplant may be contaminated with tumor cells. When a patient has an autologous transplant it may be possible to remove, or reduce the number of leukemia cells by special techniques before the transplant. This is called purging and it can be done in two different ways. The first is to use special antibodies to isolate the stem cells and then return the .
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enriched stem cells to the patient(Bone Marrow 4). The other process is to get the cells from the marrow harvest before the stem cells are returned to the patient. This is called negative selection. These two methods can be used on the same marrow or stem cell harvest.
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia usually requires little or no treatment for many years because this condition progresses very slowly. In younger patients stem cell transplantation can occur and may be used as a curve for chronic lymphocytic leukemia(Bone Marrow 6).
In patients who have chronic myeloid leukemia, chemotherapy is typically used. The only treatment which has been proven to cure this is a donor marrow transplant. Many of the diseases related to leukemia such as myelodysplastic syndromes and myelofibrosis occur in older adults. A donor bone marrow or blood stem cell transplant is the only chance of a cure for patients who have severe unresponsive aplastic anemia. The cure rate with transplants of stem cells can be as high as 80%(Bone Marrow 7). .
Stem cells can be grown in laboratories, this process is called culturization. Culturization can make many different types of organs such as cartilage, bone, liver and many different types of neurons and brain cells.