Stem Cell Treatment for Solid Tumors Cancers in South Africa

• Organs
• Muscles
• Bones

Not every tumor is cancer. A tumor, which doesn't have any cancer cells, is known as benign. A tumor with cancer cells is known as malignant.

Doctors divide cancer into 2 main forms: cancers in the blood and solid tumor cancers. Cancers in the blood are usually known as hematological cancers. Blood cancers do not form tumors.

In health facilities, doctors who treat solid tumors are usually in a different department compared to those who cure blood cancers.

Two primary kinds of solid tumors are carcinomas and sarcomas. Many kinds of solid tumors, whether a carcinoma or a sarcoma, are usually treated using surgery.

• Sarcomas: are tumors in a tendon, ligament, blood vessel, muscle, bone, lymph vessel or fat tissue. There are numerous forms of sarcomas. They are:
• Osteosarcoma and Ewing sarcoma that are bone cancer sarcomas.
• Rhabdomyosarcoma that is a soft tissue sarcoma present in muscles.
• Carcinomas: are tumors, which grow in epithelial cells. You can find epithelial cells in the linings of organs, in the skin and glands. Those organs are part of the kidneys, the bladder, and uterus.
• -One usual carcinoma is adrenocortical carcinoma. It is when a tumor grows in one or both adrenal glands, situated above each kidney.

• A tumor is a name given to any unusual growth of cells. Tumors may be malignant (dangerous) or benign (harmless).
• Solid tumors develop as a mass of cells in a certain gland, organ or tissue organ, most often the colon, lung, breast, and prostrate.
• Solid tumors have various names based on where they develop: carcinomas grow in cells lining or skin cells or covering the internal organs; sarcomas grow in connective tissue, fat, bone, blood vessels, cartilage or muscle; lymphomas grow in mature immune system cells. Brain tumors often don't fall into these categories, since they might surface from cell types solely located in the brain.
• Some risk factors for solid tumors may be modified whilst others can't (family history, age, gender).
• If solid tumors are benign and remain in their place of origin, they may usually be removed and present no lasting risk. But malignant tumors can metastasize or spread to a different section of the body through the immune system or blood. If that occurs, the diagnosis becomes poor.
• The standard of care for the treating solid tumors are immune therapy, chemotherapy, surgery, adjuvant stem cell transplantation, and radiation.
• In spite of many advances, the large number of metastatic solid tumors are still terminal.

The use of stem cells to treat solid tumors revolves around two simple approaches: learning about cancer stem cells and transplanting hematopoietic stem cells (blood cells, which may trigger all kinds of blood cells).

• Hematopoietic- stem cell transplants have actually been used for several years to resupply blood cells to patients going through radiation or chemotherapy as part of their cancer treatment. These may either be allogeneic (from a donor) or autologous (from the patient). Both kinds of transplants are widely used to treat patients with solid tumors. For instance, allogeneic transplantation coupled with reduced intensity chemotherapy has been effective in reducing relapse rates in some solid tumors, like kidney and breast.
• Autologous- transplantation is especially helpful for pediatric cancer. Kids aren't candidates for radiation because it would damage their developing brains; therefore their hematopoietic stem cells are harvested and re-infused following aggressive chemotherapy. This technique is currently standard and may improve survival rates for kids with bone, brain and immune cell tumors.