Many patients wish to benefit from regenerative medicine but are unsure if it's worth pursuing, as they don't know how well cell therapy works. It's certainly effective for many diseases. For some conditions, cell therapy is presumed effective and is still undergoing clinical research. Affordable stem cell therapy options are presented on the Booking Health website. Here, you can learn which clinics use it and what diseases can already be treated with regenerative medicine methods.
How Cell Therapy Works
Stem cells (SCs) are undifferentiated cells that can develop into various types of tissue. They're used to stimulate regeneration and improve the function of internal organs, as well as restore musculoskeletal structures, blood formation, improve vision, and more.
Most often, SCs are used to treat diseases associated with organ and tissue destruction. These may be damaged due to long-term illness, injury, inflammation, blood supply deficiency, degenerative processes, etc. Regardless of the cause, certain tissues are destroyed and require restoration. The human body always produces stem cells used for regenerative processes, but often not enough to count on rapid and significant improvement in the functions of affected organs. Cell therapy allows collecting many SCs in one place and introducing them into the problem area to accelerate recovery.
SCs can mature into functional cells and integrate into defect zones to restore damaged organs. They also secrete growth factors – signaling molecules that stimulate regeneration. These growth factors can promote angiogenesis, reduce inflammation, stimulate the proliferation and differentiation of local stem cells and progenitor cells, modulate the immune system, and prevent programmed cell death (apoptosis).
How Stem Cell Transplantation Works in Blood Diseases
SCs first demonstrated outstanding effectiveness in oncology and hematology. They're used for leukemias, lymphomas, multiple myeloma, and aplastic anemia. The technique has also been successfully applied in autoimmune diseases, as it allows “resetting” the immune system, making it work normally without damaging the person's own organs and tissues.
The essence of the method is bone marrow renewal. SCs are obtained from the patient, frozen, and stored until transplantation. This is followed by conditioning: it involves chemotherapy, possibly radiation therapy, or a course of immunosuppressive therapy if SC transplantation is performed for autoimmune pathologies. Conditioning destroys cancer cells, suppresses immunity, and destroys bone marrow. After some time, the person is injected with their own SCs collected earlier. They migrate to the bone marrow and restore blood formation.
Diseases Where Cell Therapy is Effective
Doctors are still learning to treat diseases with stem cells. For many pathologies, cell therapy is considered experimental, although considerable evidence of effectiveness has already been obtained. More and more research using SCs is conducted annually.
The most common areas of application:
- SC transplant is used for hemoblastosis (“blood cancer”), hematological, and autoimmune diseases.
- Cell therapy is increasingly used in orthopedics for joint diseases, non-healing bone fractures, and degenerative tendon processes.
- In neurology, autologous SCs are used for neurodegenerative diseases: Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, demyelinating pathologies, after strokes and traumatic brain injuries.
- In ophthalmology, SCs are used to improve vision in retinal diseases, neuropathy, and optic nerve atrophy.
- SCs are used to improve the function of internal organs in renal, hepatic, cardiac failure, and pancreatic dysfunction.
A complete list of diseases where SCs are used can be found on the Booking Health website. This list of pathologies is constantly expanding as cell therapy gains more evidence of effectiveness as clinical research results are completed and published. On the Booking Health website, you can choose a cell therapy center, learn about prices, and make an appointment on convenient dates. Booking Health team will fully organize your trip abroad for medical treatment.