Stem Cell Transplants and the Treatment of Cancer

With almost two decades of experience as an attending physician in Poughkeepsie, New York, Dr. Ram Kancherla is a managing partner at Hudson Valley Cancer Center. In 2000, Dr. Ram Kancherla wrote a chapter in a book about hematopoietic stem cell transportation. During his previous position at Westchester Medical Center, he focused on stem cell transplantation.

Many oncologists practice stem cell transplants, since they can be a way to help patients restore the blood-forming stem cells that they have lost during certain types of cancer treatments. Radiation therapy or high doses of chemotherapy, for example, can destroy the stem cells responsible for growing into blood cells like platelets, red blood cells, and white blood cells, which are crucial for a healthy body.

Although most stem cell transplants do not work directly against cancer and only help the patient recover from the oncology treatment's effects, some types of cancer such as leukemia and multiple myeloma are directly affected by transplantation. In these cases, the donor’s white blood cells may attack the remaining cancer cells after the allogeneic transplant, enhancing the success of the cancer treatment.