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RRH Harnesses Stem Cells’ Potential to Treat Cancers Randi Minetor
If you have been waiting for decades to see if stem cells turn out to be the new frontier of disease treatment, we now have the answer. It’s a resounding yes, said Anne Renteria, MD, Rochester Regional Health’s Medical Director of the Acute Leukemia & Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy programs at the Lipson Cancer Institute. “I always tell my kids that I live in a sci-fi world,” she said. “It is very complex and very specialized, but what we are doing is bringing Rochester Regional Health (RRH) very community-based access to cell therapies and bone marrow transplants.” Stem cells, produced by the bone marrow, have the ability to turn into all three of the types of blood cells that the human body requires to function. This capability can be lifesaving to people with one of several kinds of blood cancer, such as acute leukemia or lymphoma, and also those who have undergone high-dose chemotherapy. “Some of the chemo is so strong that it will bring the blood counts all the way down to zero,” said Dr. Renteria. “If you leave it like that, there’s a good chance the counts will never recover. So we infuse back their own stem cells after they receive high-dose chemo.” There are two modalities of stem cell transplant—and in either case, the patient’s cancer should be in remission before the transplant. An allogenic transplant involves finding a donor who is a perfect or near-perfect match for the patient, so that they can donate stem cells from their own bone marrow to restore the patient’s immune system. “We have to identify someone who is perfectly matched, and those stem cells are infused in the patient,” said Dr. Renteria. “So we need to first treat the cancer, then administer a conditioning chemo followed by immunosuppressive therapy to make sure that the patient can accept and allow the buildup of the new and foreign stem cells in their body. These new and foreign stem cells have the mission to build a new immune system.” An autologous transplant, also called high-dose chemo followed by stem cell rescue, involves collecting the patient’s 10 I VOLUME 4 I 2021 WNYPHYSICIAN.COM
Dr. Renteria is the Medical Director of our Acute Leukemia & Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy Programs.
own stem cells after the patient has been treated with chemotherapy, when, for example, the multiple myeloma has been defeated and the patient’s bone marrow is close to free of cancer. Even though the disease has been arrested, the bone marrow after receiving a high-dose chemo may be so suppressed that it will be unable to generate the blood cells the body needs for a healthy recovery. “The patient’s stem cells are typically collected four to six weeks ahead of the transplant procedure, then preserved in liquid nitrogen,” said Dr. Renteria. “They are therefore ready to use when we proceed with the transplant procedure.”
