Lung Cancer

According to the American Cancer Society lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related mortality and although the overall incidence is declining, it continues to rise in women. Each year, more people die of lung cancer than breast, colon, and prostate cancers combined.¹ Treatment depends on the specific type of lung cancer. Each type is treated differently. Chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery may be needed.¹ Researchers continue to study alternative treatment options including stem cell-based therapies. One type of stem cell-based therapy being explored uses Mesenchyemal Stem Cells in treatment.

In a study, researchers used Mesenchymal Stem Cells isolated from rat umbilical cords (UC-MSCs) to test the basic ability of these cells to control the growth of cancer cells in a mouse model of lung cancer.² Following treatment, the rat UC-MSCs were able to significantly decrease the tumor weight and total tumor mass. The results indicated that rat UC-MSCs alone can remarkably attenuate the growth of lung carcinoma (cancer) cells, in vitro as well as in a mouse model, and could potentially be used for targeted cell therapy for lung cancer.

References:

1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0004529/

2. Therapy with un-engineered naïve rat umbilical cord matrix stem cells markedly inhibits growth of murine lung adenocarcinoma, BMC Cancer 2010, 10:590doi:10.1186/1471-2407-10-590, Dharmendra K Maurya , Chiyo Doi , Atsushi Kawabata , Marla M Pyle , Clay King , Zhihong Wu , Deryl Troyer and Masaaki Tamura http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/10/590

IMPORTANT NOTE: All research using cord tissue stem cells is in pre-clinical studies. Medical treatments using family banked cord tissue are not available today; there is no guarantee that therapies will be developed in the future.