BACKGROUND: In 2012, there were 23,540 deaths from leukemia and 47,150 new cases in the United States. Leukemia is cancer that starts in blood-forming tissue such as bone marrow and causes large numbers of blood cells to be produced and enter the bloodstream. Most normal blood cells develop from cells in the bone marrow, called stem cells. Bone marrow is the soft material in the center of most bones. Stem cells will develop into different kinds of blood cells each with a specific job. White blood cells fight infection. Red blood cells carry oxygen to tissue throughout the body. Platelets help form blood clots that control bleeding. These cells are made from stem cells as the body needs them. Most blood cells mature in the bone marrow. Then they will move into the blood vessels. When someone has leukemia, their bone marrow makes abnormal white blood cells, called leukemia cells. (Source: http://www.cancer.gov)

RISK FACTORS: The exact cause of leukemia is unknown. Researchers do know that there are certain risk factors that increase the likelihood of developing the disease. They include:

TREATMENT: Treatment will depend on the type of leukemia, the patients age, and whether leukemia cells were found in the cerebrospinal fluid. Treatment options can include: watchful waiting, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, biological therapy, radiation therapy, and stem cell transplant. Many leukemia patients use chemotherapy. It uses drugs to destroy leukemia cells. Patients with chronic myeloid leukemia may receive drugs called targeted therapy. Imatinib tablets were the first targeted therapy approved for chronic myeloid leukemia, but there are now others. Biological therapy is the treatment that improves the bodys natural defenses against the disease. Radiation therapy uses high-energy rays to kill leukemia cells. Stem cell transplant allows the patient to be treated with high doses of drugs, radiation, or both. After the patient receives the high dose of medications, the leukemia cells and normal blood cells in the bone marrow are destroyed. Then the patient receives healthy stem cells through a large vein, similar to a blood transfusion. New blood cells will develop from the transplanted stem cells. (Source: http://www.cancer.gov)

NEW ADVANCES: A different treatment option that is still in clinical trials is the use of cord blood stem cells from the placentas of newborn babies. Umbilical cord blood, like bone marrow, is a rich source of stem cells for transplantation. The cord blood for transplantation is collected from the umbilical cord and placenta after a baby is born. The cells used in transplants can come from marrow, peripheral blood, and the umbilical cord blood. The first successful cord blood stem cell transplant was done in 1988 in Paris, France on a boy with Fanconi anemia, a fatal and genetic type of anemia. It has also been given successfully to patients with over 70 diseases, including acute lymphocytic leukemia, acute myelogenous leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, chronic myelogenous leukemia, juvenile chronic myelogenous leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, thalassemia, neuroblastoma, severe combined immune deficiency, Aldrich syndrome, and severe aplastic anemia. The umbilical cord is routinely discarded after a baby is delivered unless the parents choose to do otherwise. For certain patients, there are advantages to using donor cord blood stem cells instead of donor peripheral blood or donor marrow stem cells, including: availability (cord blood is stored in a public bank, tested, and frozen); Human Leukocyte Antigen Matching does not have to be as close a match as a bone marrow or peripheral blood transplants; fewer patients get Graft-Versus-Host Disease; diversity; and less risk of obtaining an infectious disease. (Source: http://www.lls.org)

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Stem Cells For Leukemia: New Hope From Newborns

Feb. 22, 2013 The parasites that cause schistosomiasis, one of the most common parasitic infections in the world, are notoriously long-lived. Researchers have now found stem cells inside the parasite that can regenerate worn-down organs, which may help explain how they can live for years or even decades inside their host.

Schistosomiasis is acquired when people come into contact with water infested with the larval form of the parasitic worm Schistosoma, known as schistosomes. Schistosomes mature in the body and lay eggs that cause inflammation and chronic illness. Schistosomes typically live for five to six years, but there have been reports of patients who still harbor parasites decades after infection.

According to new research from Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator Phillip Newmark, collections of stem cells that can help repair the worms bodies as they age could explain how the worms survive for so many years. The new findings were published online on February 20, 2013, in the journal Nature.

The stem cells that Newmarks team found closely resemble stem cells in planaria, free-living relatives of the parasitic worms. Planaria rely on these cells, called neoblasts, to regenerate lost body parts. Whereas most adult stem cells in mammals have a limited set of possible fatesblood stem cells can give rise only to various types of blood cells, for example planarian neoblasts can turn into any cell in the worms body under the right circumstances.

Newmarks lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has spent years focused on planaria, so they knew many details about planarian neoblasts what they look like, what genes they express, and how they proliferate. They also knew that in uninjured planarians, neoblasts maintain tissues that undergo normal wear and tear over the worms lifetime.

We began to wonder whether schistosomes have equivalent cells and whether such cells could be partially responsible for their longevity, says Newmark.

Following this hunch, and using what they knew about planarian neoblasts, post-doctoral fellow Jim Collins, Newmark, and their colleagues hunted for similar cells in Schistosoma mansoni, the most widespread species of human-infecting schistosomes.

Their first step was to look for actively dividing cells in the parasites. To do this, they grew worms in culture and added tags that would label newly replicated DNA as cells prepare to divide; this label could later be visualized by fluorescence. Following this fluorescent tag, they saw a collection of proliferating cells inside the worms body, separate from any organs.

The researchers isolated those cells from the schistosomes and studied them individually. They looked like typical stem cells, filled with a large nucleus and a small amount of cytoplasm that left little room for any cell-type-specific functionality. Newmarks lab observed the cells and found that they often divided to give rise to two different cells: one cell that continued dividing, and another cell that did not.

One feature of stem cells, says Newmark, is that they make more stem cells; furthermore, many stem cells undergo asymmetric division. The schistosomes cells were behaving like stem cells in these respects. The other characteristic of stem cells is that they can differentiate into other cell types.

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Stash of stem cells found in a human parasite