Bone Marrow and Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Donation.
Bone marrow and peripheral stem cell donation is very essential to many people's lives. They depend on it to live and without it they just might as well live life to the fullest before they pass. Many people get diagnosed every year with many kinds of cancer. Stem cell transplant is used to help cure many of these diseases. There are risks and fallbacks, but most people recover feeling healthy and happy.
Diseases that require stem cell transplantation.
There are many diseases that can require the need for a bone marrow transplant. Bone marrow, according to www.bmtnews.org, is a spongy tissue found inside bones. Stem cells that produce the body's blood cells can be found in the breast bone, skull, hips, ribs and spine. The different types of blood cells include white blood cells (leukocytes), which fight infection; red blood cells (erythrocytes), which carry oxygen and remove waste products from organs and tissues; and platelets, which enable the blood to clot.
"Stem cell transplant is used to treat diseases that damage or destroy the bone marrow, such as lymphoma and leukemia; to rescue the bone marrow after it has been destroyed by high doses of radiation and chemotherapy; experimentally for gene therapy and the treatment of other diseases, such as diabetes and sickle cell disease" (www.webmd.com). .
Lymphoma is a "type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system, which is part of the body's immune system. There are two main types of lymphoma: Hodgkin's lymphoma and non- Hodgkin's lymphoma. Lymphomas are more common in men than in women" (www.webmd.com). Leukemia is a .
"type of cancer in which the number of white blood cells increases abnormally. It can lead to low numbers of red blood cells (anemia); low numbers of the cells that help blood to clot (platelets); swollen glands (lymph nodes) and an enlarged spleen and liver" (www.webmd.com). .
Sickle cell disease is a "blood disorder in which the body produces an abnormal type of the oxygen- carrying substance (hemoglobin) in the red blood cells" (www.
