A pioneering long-term evidence points to that stem cell therapy might be a source of permanent relief for patients with severe autoimmune diseases, with some patients being disease-free for as long as 15 years after treatment. The results are being considered as a great leap in regenerative medicine and, at the same time, they make it possible that hope returns to patients whose diseases have not been cured by conventional treatments.
In autoimmune diseases, the immune system starts to attack healthy body tissues, due to this, inflammation becomes chronic and organs joints nerves, and other life systems suffer from gradual damage. Examples of diseases that can cause a person to have a very low standard of living or even lead to death are multiple sclerosis, systemic sclerosis, lupus, and certain types of arthritis.
Traditional treatments most of the time focus on the suppression of the patient’s immune system so that the disease symptoms are controlled and its development is stopped. These treatments might work but the patient might have to take the medicine for the rest of his/her life and what’s more, it may not even be that the condition disappears for good. So, the idea has started to spread that it might be better to get a completely new immune system which is why the re-education of the immune system by therapeutic means is getting more and more convincing.
The new research investigates hematopoietic stem cell transplantation which is a method whereby the blood-forming stem cells are obtained from the patients themselves before the use of intensive therapy to wipe out the malfunctioning immune cells. The stem cells which have been put on ice are reintroduced into the body where they are the builders of a new immune system.
Per scientists, the immune system goes through the “reboot” phase which is like a computer when you restart it. The aim of the therapy is to stop disease activity as well as function normally by eliminating the faulty immune responses that have been responsible for attacking the healthy tissues. The long-term results indicate that this approach can produce effects that last much longer than what most people expected.
For example, if people have been followed up on for 10 years maybe some of these patients who were already in remission might not be showing any signs of relapsed disease. The patients who were struggling with the symptoms of their diseases have now been able to achieve goals like independence, better physical performance, and a much higher level of happiness.
Really the patients were experiencing the most serious conditions of the autoimmune diseases that have not responded adequately to the standard treatments is one of the reasons why these results are so good. These people had used all their therapeutic options before stem cell transplantation, which only makes their long-term remission rates more outstanding.
Medical professionals are highlighting that the treatment is not good for all patients, and it is still a very complicated process. Stem cell transplantation may be related to some risks, including immune suppression and infection resulting from treatments.So, patient assessment and treatment at a well-established medical institution are of crucial importance to maximize both safety and efficacy.
This research is an indication of the expanding role of regeneration medicine which deals with the repair, substitution or rejuvenation of deteriorated tissues and systems of living organisms. Stem cells have attracted a lot of interest because they possess the ability to differentiate into different types of cells and play a major part in the repair of the body.
The knowledge about the properties of stem cells has been growing constantly and so has the interest in their therapeutic potential owing to multiple breakthroughs within the last 20 years. At present, scientists hold the view that stem cell-based therapies for a broad spectrum of disorders like brain diseases, heart disease, diabetes, and age-associated degenerative diseases, will be developed.
