Stem cell transplants, after chemotherapy, can rid a patient of cancer by regenerating healthy tissues. A brief summary of cancer will be given to understand the link between high doses of chemotherapy (chemo) and stem cell therapy. Indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) will be considered, as well as how “big pharma” plays a role in trying to hide IKS treatments from the public in order to make more money. This all connects to the hypothesis that, if stem cell transplants are done after high doses of chemotherapy, which can rid the patient of cancer, because lost blood cells are replaced then the stem cells will regenerate only healthy cells/tissues and cancer patients can fully recover.
Cancer
According to Medical News Today [17], “cancer is
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Cancer.org [4] reports that higher doses cannot be used because even though it will kill more cancer cells, it would damage the bone marrow severely. The stem cell transplant is effective because after high doses of chemotherapy the patient is able to receive “blood-forming” stem cells to repair the bone marrow. There two types of stem cell transplants, one which uses the patients’ own stem cells (autologous stem cell transplant) and the other which uses donor stem cells (allogeneic stem cell transplant). Stem cells used for the transplant can come from blood and bone marrow. Complications and side effects can occur and be fatal but due to advances in technology and accompanying research, as well as better supportive care there are more successes than mortalities. NCBI [27] states that “in more recent reports treatment-related deaths are observed in <3% of patients.” This shows that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, making this a very successful treatment plan for many …show more content…
The risk of infection is very high because the patient will have a low white blood cell count after the treatment. These infections are prevented with “gut sterilises,” [3]. Red blood cell (RBC) count will also decrease after treatment which will result in fatigue and breathlessness. The low RBC count could lead to anaemia, but this can be combatted through a blood transfusion. A sore mouth, diarrhoea and difficulty eating and drinking could occur. Besides common side effects, the patient’s body could reject the donor stem cells. The extent of long term side effects is unknown [16]. There are more serious, rare, side effects such as organ damage, infertility and death. With the great success rate of stem cell therapy some people believe that natural IKS treatments should be the way cancer is