Tracking Stem Cell Recipients
The BBC reports on a follow-up study of some of the first recipients of stem cell transplants: "Blood cancer patients who had stem-cell transplants are virtually as healthy as their peers 10 years later ... This study looked at patients who had received haematopoietic cell transplants (HCTs) to replace diseased blood-forming cells produced in the bone marrow. All of the patients received their transplants between March 1987 and March 1990. Most of them had been treated for these two conditions. After 10 years, researchers compared their health with that of 137 healthy people, most of whom were siblings of the patients." The absence of obvious, serious problems connected with this form of therapy is good news - hopefully this will continue to be the case as much larger groups of patients are studied: "More than 45,000 people receive stem-cell transplants across the world each year."