A Strategy for Autoimmune Disease
(Via EurekAlert). Researchers have demonstrated an apparently viable strategy for dealing with autoimmune disease: "The patients' own bone marrow stem cells were harvested from their blood. ... Next, in a process that usually requires a few weeks of hospitalization, patients immune systems were virtually destroyed through high doses of chemotherapy. Then the cleansed stem cells were returned to the bone marrow to repopulate the marrow and body in an effort to regenerate a healthier immune system. ... 50 percent of the 50 patients in the study had disease-free survival at five years with an overall five-year survival rate of 84 percent." Chemotherapy will be replaced with more effective, less unpleasant methodologies in the future, such as nanoscale delivery systems demonstrated by cancer researchers.
Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-01/nmh-llr012606.php