Stem Cell Transplantation for Treatment of Intractable Diseases

Hemopoietic stem cells (HSCs) can be harvested from the bone marrow, peripheral blood or umbilical cord blood. HSC transplantation is used to treat hematologic and lymphoid cancers and other disorders. Some reports have indicated that Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) might cure these intractable diseases--including hematological disorders, autoimmune diseases and age-associated diseases. Intra bone marrowBMT (IBM-BMT) has been proven to be a powerful strategy for allogeneic BMT due to the rapid hemopoietic recovery and the complete restoration of T cell functions. In this review, we summarize the findings of our studies of IBM-BMT to treat some intractable diseases, including cancers such as leukemia, autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune pancreatitis, age-related diseases such as osteoporosis and Alzheimer’s disease in mouse models. Li and Ikehara, Ming Li and Susumu Ikehara* Some reports have shown that antibody response is lower in the older than younger humans and the efficacy of vaccinations is reduced [24,25] and that morbidity and mortality are increased in aged mice and humans [26]. B lineage precursors function decreased with aging resulting from the decreasing function of HSCs. IBM-BMT of young marrow cells reversed the reduction of pro-B cells and pre-B cells. The frequency of follicular-B cells in the IBM-BMT group was significantly increased compared to those in the older group [27]. types of mesenchymal origin, such as osteoblasts, adipocytes and Citation: Li M, Ikehara S (2013) Stem Cell Transplantation for Treatment of Intractable Diseases. J Blood Lymph 3: 111. doi:10.4172/2165-7831.1000111 Copyright: © 2013 Li M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.