Assessment of Newly diagnosed Myeloma Every newly diagnosed myeloma patient should be assessed for fitness to undergo auto-stem cell transplantation. Although some centers use an age cutoff (usually 60–65 years), it is reasonable to take performance status, organ function, and comorbidities into account, rather than age, when deciding whether a […]
Incidence of Multiple Myeloma Myeloma accounts for approximately 1 percent of all malignancies and 10 percent of hematologic tumors, representing the second most frequently occurring hematologic malignancy in the United States. At any one time, 50,000 people suffer from multiple myeloma symptoms, and approximately 15,000 cases are diagnosed each year. […]
Definition of Multiple Myeloma Multiple Myelomais a malignancy of terminally differentiated B cells (plasma cells) that produces a complete and/or partial (light chain) monoclonal immunoglobulin protein. Multiple Myeloma cells induce, in the context of the extracellular matrix, critical alterations in the marrow microenvironment, which, in turn, evoke cell-survival signals, contributing […]
How to chose between Autologous and Allogeneic Marrow Transplant? The choice of performing autologous versus allogeneic transplant in patients with hematolymphoid malignancies depends, in part, on the disease being treated, its response to conventional-dose chemotherapy, and the availability of a histocompatible donor. When to chose Autologous Transplant? In general terms, autologous […]
Why to care about Histocompatible Marrow Donor? Over the years the increased precision in HLA typing has resulted in clinically notable improvements in outcome as accurate matching at the histocompatibility complex is considered essential to minimize graft versus- host disease and graft failure. Comparing studies that evaluated the impact of […]
How to chose the best patient for Marrow Transplantation? Patient-related factors that affect Marrow Transplantation Most marrow transplantation candidates are referred by hematologists or oncologists to the tertiary center where the marrow transplantation procedure will be performed. Patients considered for Marrow Transplantation require in-depth counseling by experienced transplantation physicians, nurses, […]
The Decision of Using autologous stem cell transplantation The relationship between the dose of chemotherapy and/or radiation and the number of tumor cells killed has been extensively studied in vitro and in preclinical animal models, and forms the basis for the decision to pursue autologous stem cell transplantation. For chemosensitive tumors […]
The Rule of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Marrow Transplantation The founding principles of hematopoietic cell transplantation are that infused hematopoietic stem cells home and engraft in the marrow microenvironment and expand and proliferate to reconstitute all of the blood lineages. Yet it may be that another cellular component of the marrow microenvironment, […]
Umbilical Cord Blood a source of hematopoietic stem cells Umbilical cord blood (UCB) collected from the umbilical vessels in the placenta at the time of delivery is a rich source of hematopoietic stem cells. Because these cells are immunologically relatively naive, recipients may have satisfactory outcomes, even when crossing major […]
Migration of Stem Cells The ability of hematopoietic stem cells to circulate and migrate from marrow to blood and back is an aspect of the hematopoietic system that has been conserved through evolution. Although the biologic role and physiologic significance of this constitutive hematopoietic stem cells circulation remains unclear, it is […]
Stem Cells Self-Renewal At the single-cell level, stem cells self-renew into more stem cells and give rise to progeny that differentiate into functional cells carrying out specific functions. Progenitor cells can be multipotent, oligopotent, or unipotent yet lack self-renewal capabilities. Hematopoietic stem cells are cells that give rise to more […]