Stem cells are being used today in many ways and in many cases they're able to use your own stem cells and in that case their are no rejection issues. For the form of leukemia I have, that's not the case. To avoid confusion, stem cells I believe are generally made in the marrow and the term bone marrow transplant is often used when it's actually stem cells that are being transplanted.
In my case, no immediate family members matched my DNA sufficiently to work, so they went to a worldwide registry and I actually had two 12 point matches, that's as good as it gets, 10 is considered sufficient to do it, and I believe in an emergency they'll go even lower.
The hazard in doing stem cell transplants is the fact that to do it successfully, they need to essentially kill off your entire immune system with chemo. Once that's been done, the stem cells were introduced through an I.V. just like anything else your given, blood counts are routinely drawn and at first you're producing essentially nothing, but as the stem cells populate the marrow, you gradually start to see counts, and each day you look forward to seeing them build. In my case, on day 19 the Dr. who was pinch hitting for my Dr. let me go home. When my Dr. saw me the next week, he said he'd have been more conservative and held me an additional week, but in that I had no complications it worked fine.
At that point, my immune system was like that of a newborn baby and the immune system had to rebuild itself. I did have some complications that brought me into the hospital, the most painful being shingles, as well as pneumonia a couple times, including recently, and an infection in the IV line which they left in for awhile. Roughly one year after the transplant I was getting vaccines normally given to children, as all the immunizations I was given as a child were wiped out by the chemo. I forget precisely how long I was on anti-rejection drugs, but I believe by one year I was weaned off them as well. I still take a chemo and other drugs to help prevent infection and have to be considered somewhat immune compromised. In most other ways I'm normal, but somewhat weak because of chemo, and I should get more exercise, but the few times I've been back to working out routinely at the gym I've come down with pneumonia, I just don't know how to avoid the germs typical in gyms.
It would be my hope that using placental cells, a treatment might actually evolve that cured the disease without all the chemo by eliminating the defective stem cells that were producing the defective blood cells found in leukemia. Their are many forms of leukemia, and I believe that in some they can even use your own stem cells, but I'm not certain of that, its certainly wasn't the case with me.
I frankly don't know that all uses of stem cells are valid, but I know people who've had them injected into their knees and seem to feel less pain. What I do know is that harvesting your stem cells isn't that big a deal, though it used to be. Donor's have a choice, it can be done quickly with some pain as they go in and take some marrow which they can remove the stem cells from, or they can give a person medications that stimulate stem cells development, and remove them from the blood in much the same manner as when donating blood plasma. Taking it from the blood may only take a matter of hours, but in some cases I believe donors must return for draws for a few days. It's inconvenient, I believe donors spend several hours each day until sufficient cells are harvested, but their is very little pain and donor's may very well be saving someone's life. I very much recommend registering for it.
I don't know where my stem cells came from, I would thank whoever donated them if I did. In places in Europe you need to give a DNA sample in order to get your driver's licence, so they may very well have come from Europe. I frankly wish this were done worldwide, but no doubt some would consider it an invasion of their privacy. I don't know that it wouldn't also be used in fighting crime, etc. as something as small as a hair or flake of skin would say a person had been there. To me, I have no problem with that as I'm not planning to be anywhere I shouldn't be, but some may not be willing to say the same. I don't believe that even where DNA is known that people must donate stem cells if they're a match, but I believe that most would do it if they understood it would save a life.
Gary
