DAMMAM: King Fahd Specialist Hospital in Dammam has succeeded in performing stem cell transplant operations on two patients suffering from blood plasma tumors, in procedures described as the first ever at a Ministry of Health hospital. Both patients are said to be in excellent health, with one having already left hospital and the other expected to be discharged within the next few days. Dr. Khaled Al-Enizi, a hematologist and stem cell transplant specialist who supervised the two cases, said the first step in treating blood cancer is high doses of chemical treatment to kill cancerous cells. “Then health ones can be transplanted from the patient himself to produce new blood,” Al-Enizi said. He added that King Fahd Specialist Hospital admits on an average one blood cancer patient every week. Stem cell treatments are a type of intervention strategy that introduces new cells into damaged tissue in order to treat disease or injury. Many medical researchers believe that stem cell treatments have the potential to change the face of human disease and alleviate suffering. Although the procedure to replenish a body's supply of healthy blood-forming cells is generally called a stem cell transplant, it's also known as a bone marrow transplant or an umbilical cord blood transplant, depending on the source of the stem cells. Stem cell transplants can use cells from one's own body (autologous stem cell transplant), or they can use stem cells from donors (allogenic stem cell transplant). The ability of stem cells to self-renew and give rise to subsequent generations with variable degrees of differentiation capacities, offers significant potential for generation of tissues that can potentially replace diseased and damaged areas in the body, with minimal risk of rejection and side effects. Some researchers believe that the key to finding a cure for cancer is to inhibit proliferation of cancer stem cells. Accordingly, current cancer treatments are designed to kill cancer cells.
