Guest guest Posted August 12, 2006 Report Share Posted August 12, 2006 Theres a bit of confusion with this stuff. One thing people do, I vaguely understand, is inject stem cells into damaged tissue - and/or the blood(?). I guess the hope is that they will repair the tissue. Immunoablation with hematopoetic stem cell transplant (or rescue) is different. The hematopoetic stem cell transplant is not always the point in this therapy; sometimes the immunoablation is much more important. The immunoablation (a short treatment with really toxic drugs and/or radiation) kills off almost all your lymphocytes (and who knows what else) in most areas of the body, which may be really great if you have a lymphocyte cancer or lymphocytes that are causing some sort of immune disease. However, this obviously takes your immune system offline and you would rot like a compost pile if you didnt get a hematopoetic stem cell transplant. The hematopoetic stem cells localize in your bone marrow and take over the production of white cells. Eventually your own immune system comes back online (at least almost always). There are actually several important further variations/alterations within/of that type of procedure. But I dont want to get into it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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