Therapies for Leukemia Patients Essay -- Leukemia

Executive SummaryTwo promising therapies for leukemia patients are bone marrow transplantation andperipheral stem cell transplantation. Successful transplants require that two immunologic barriersbe overcome a host-versus-graft (HVG) reaction and a graft-versus-host (GVH) reaction. Amyeloablative conditioning regimen, which involves a depletion of the patients insubordinate system,usually precedes the transplantation of donor stem cells to control the HVG. However, twentyfiveto 35% of patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation experience life-threateningtransplant-related complications (Holler 1990). Serum tumor necrosis portion (TNF)-_ levels areelevated prior to these complications and are indicative of future problems, such as rejection,graft-versus-host disease, interstitial pneumonitis, endothelial leakage syndrome, and venoocclusivedisease (Remberger 1994).As a result, many a(prenominal) patients who are at high risk for these complications, including patientsover 55 y ears old, patients with poor overall health, and children, are turned down for stem celltransplantation. In the mid-1990s, a regimen was developed that uses non-myeloablativeconditioning. In this procedure, the immune system of the recipient is not totally depleted, whichcreates a tolerable regimen for those high risk patients.This bulge out will compare the relative toxicity of myeloablative allogenic peripheralblood stem cell transplantation (PBSCT) and non-myeloablative PBSCT. This will involvecollecting patient serum samples at various time intervals during treatment. The samples will beevaluated for TNF-a concentrations using the ELISA technique. The data will then be used todetermine the toxicity of each regimen.This postulate will p... ...ne response.MacKay I, Rosen F The Immune System. NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE 2000343 108-117. This is the second part of the review article on immunology. It describeslymphocytes and lymphoid tissue, molecular aspects of the immune re sponse, the energizing andregulation of lymphocytes, immune protection by antibodies and immunologic technology.Tanaka J, Imamura M, Kasai M, et al The important balance between cytokines derived from reference 1 and type 2 helper T cells in the control of graft-versus-host disease. BONE MARROWTRANSPLANTATION 1997 19 571-576. This article assesses the cytokine network aftertransplantation, and its connection to graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). It looks at the balancebetween type 1 (Th1) and type 2 (Th2) helper T cells, and concludes that severe GVHD may berelated to a cytokine imbalance between the helper cells.