The clinical relevance and potential benefit of stem cells and regenerative medicine

Are you looking for a different and advanced medical treatment? You are probably already familiar with the emerging era of stem cells and regenerative medicine, the hype of miracle cures and success stories along with warnings of fraud, potential harm, and ethical criticism. You can browse the web and find a large number of websites, hospitals, organizations, academic centers, all of which describe comprehensive theoretical explanations, up-to-date advances and innovations. If you are a patient looking for a very specific treatment, you will need a lot of information that is interesting but not relevant to your immediate medical needs. You can learn about new genes that control the development of different types of stem cells; a unique and rare type of stem cells found in menstrual blood; a new technology to overcome mouse-proven blindness; multiple reasons to store your baby’s stem cells, and many more. Some of the information is provided by prestigious universities and established medical centers, and some by smaller clinics and lesser-known blogs.

Can this kind of information help you cope with your current medical condition? Unfortunately, your current needs as a patient or family cannot be easily extracted from all this enormous amount of data.

For many chronic and life-threatening diseases, advanced cell and stem cell therapy technologies offer new experimental and more established treatments. What patients and most people need is highly relevant information that addresses clinical situations and their potential novel treatments.

A single online source of information about clinics, hospitals, and treatments in the emerging fields of stem cells, regenerative medicine, and immunotherapy is essential. It should allow patients to select and judge clinics and treatments based on their individual condition, location, and risk assessment. It should focus on the needs of the patient, emphasizing clinical studies and published results for cancer and other chronic and life-threatening diseases. A patient must be able to focus on her medical condition without going into the details of scientific data or academic presentations. It should be a patient-focused source for innovative and primarily experimental cell therapy options, in overseas clinics as well as in FDA-approved clinical studies.

The first and approved clinical use of stem cells is bone marrow transplantation as part of the treatment of hematologic malignancies. Similar procedures are intensively tested in various hospitals for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. The next clinically relevant advance will probably be the regenerative treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Numerous FDA-registered and controlled clinical trials are currently underway for the treatment of heart disease and peripheral arterial disease. The other categories currently entering intensive clinical trials are type 1 diabetes, muscular dystrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and some neurodegenerative diseases. There are many preliminary and pilot studies for additional conditions, as well as treatments performed in clinics around the world, worth following.

A trusted, up-to-date, and clinically focused source of information in the emerging fields of regenerative medicine and cell therapies is needed, especially for patients and individuals seeking the data that is applicable today, and not just of academic or general interest.

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