The treatment of some of mankind’s greatest killers could be revolutionized by a breakthrough in bone marrow transplants.
Scientists from Stanford University have made the life-saving infusions so safe that they say they could be used to treat numerous conditions and could provide a life-long cure with a single treatment.
The new technique could be the “Holy Grail” of transplantation, ushering in “a whole new era in disease treatment,” according to the scientists.
Critically ill patients with leukemia and other blood cancers are currently given chemotherapy or radiotherapy to wipe out their own diseased cells, before being given an infusion of healthy marrow.
The existing procedures nevertheless come with a host of side-effects and up to 20 percent of patients die from complications.
Since many of the problems are caused by the chemo or radiotherapy, the researchers went in search of a safer way of eliminating the cells.
They found it by using two different antibodies to trick the body into attacking the diseased marrow and destroying it.
Using this method in experiments in mice, more than 99 percent of the bone marrow cells were eliminated, according to a report in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The Stanford researchers said: “If it works in humans like it did in mice, we would expect the risk of death would drop from 20 percent to effectively zero.”
The researchers also devised a way of purifying the donated bone marrow, to make the transplant even safer.
According to study co-author Irving Weissmann: “There is almost no category of disease or organ transplant that is not impacted by this research.
“If and when this is accomplished, it will be a whole new era in disease treatment and regenerative medicine.”
The bone marrow is the body’s blood cell “factory” so transplants are usually used to treat blood cancers at present.
But the marrow also makes most of the cells in the body’s immune system, so any disease caused by a rogue immune response could potentially be cured by a one-off transplant.
Childhood diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases could reportedly be in the treatment’s grasp, and the technology is also said to have the potential to make heart, lung and other organ transplants safer.
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