'Cell shield' for cancer patients

9 May 2012 Last updated at 14:14 ET By James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

It may be possible to use "stem cell shielding" to protect the body from the damaging effects of chemotherapy, early results from a US trial suggest.

Chemotherapy drugs try to kill rapidly dividing cancer cells, but they can also affect other healthy tissues such as bone marrow.

A study, in Science Translational Medicine, used genetically modified stem cells to protect the bone marrow.

Cancer Research UK said it was a "completely new approach".

The body constantly churns out new blood cells in the hollow spaces inside bone. However, bone marrow is incredibly susceptible to chemotherapy.

The treatment results in fewer white blood cells being produced, which increases the risk of infection, and fewer red blood cells, which leads to shortness of breath and tiredness.

Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle, said these effects were "a major barrier" to using chemotherapy and often meant the treatment had to be stopped, delayed or reduced.

They have tried to protect the bone marrow in three patients with a type of brain cancer, glioblastoma.

One of the researchers, Dr Jennifer Adair, said: "This therapy is analogous to firing at both tumour cells and bone marrow cells, but giving the bone marrow cells protective shields while the tumour cells are unshielded."

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'Cell shield' for cancer patients