Are you looking for a different and advanced medical treatment? You’re probably already familiar with the emerging era of stem cells and regenerative medicine, the hype of miracle cures and success stories alongside the warnings of fraud, potential harm, and ethical criticism. You can browse the web and find a host of websites, hospitals, organizations, academic centers, all describing up-to-date comprehensive theoretical explanations, advancements, and innovations. If you are a patient looking for a very specific treatment, you will need to review a lot of information that is interesting but not relevant to your immediate medical needs. You can learn about new genes that control the development of different types of stem cells; a unique and rare type of stem cells found in menstrual blood; a new technology to overcome blindness proven in mouse; multiple reasons to store your baby’s stem cells and many more. Some of the information is provided by reputable universities and established medical centers, and some is provided by small, lesser-known clinics and blogs.
Can this kind of information help you cope with your current ailment? Unfortunately, your current needs as a patient or family cannot be easily extracted from all this huge amount of data.
For many chronic and life-threatening diseases, advanced cell and stem cell therapy technologies offer both experimental and more established new treatments. What patients and most people need is highly relevant information that addresses clinical situations and their possible novel treatments.
A single online source of information about clinics, hospitals, and treatments in the emerging fields of stem cells, regenerative medicine, and immunotherapy is essential. It should allow patients to select and judge clinics and treatments based on their individual condition, location, and risk assessment. It should focus on the needs of the patient, with an emphasis on clinical studies and published results for cancer and other chronic and life-threatening diseases. A patient should be able to focus on their medical condition without going into the details of scientific data or academic presentations. It should be the patient-focused source for innovative and primarily experimental cell therapy options, in offshore clinics, as well as in FDA-approved clinical studies.
The first and approved clinical use of stem cells is bone marrow transplantation as part of the treatment of hematologic malignancies. Similar procedures are intensively tested in various hospitals for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. The next clinically relevant advance is likely to be the regenerative treatment of cardiovascular disease. Numerous FDA-registered and controlled clinical trials are currently underway for the treatment of heart and peripheral artery disease. The other categories currently entering intensive clinical studies are type 1 diabetes, muscular dystrophy, amyotropic lateral sclerosis, and some neurodegenerative diseases. There are many pilot and preliminary studies for additional conditions, as well as treatments carried out in clinics around the world, that are worth pursuing.
A reliable, up-to-date and clinically focused source of information is needed in the emerging fields of regenerative medicine and cell therapies, especially for patients and individuals seeking the currently applicable data, and not just of general or academic interest.