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Essay On Stem Cell Transplants

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Hematopoietic stem cell transplants (HSCT) are used in a clinical setting to treat many disorders including, leukemia, lymphoma, aplastic anemia, and multiple myeloma. HSCT work by replacing damaged or infective bone marrow. The new stem cells travel to the bone marrow and can produce new, healthy cells. This can mean a new beginning or a second chance at life for many people receiving HSCT. While there can be several benefits of receiving a HSCT, there are serious complications to consider. Complications include thrombolytic events, infections, hepatic sinusoidal occlusive syndrome (formerly known as veno-occlusive disease and will be abbreviated in this paper as VOD/SOS), renal failure, graft-verse-host-disease, possible relapse and …show more content…

Although some of these factors cannot be modified, awareness of risk factors and careful assessments of these patients can help decreases severity of VOD/SOS. Diagnosis Currently, there are three methods to diagnose VOD/SOS. The gold standard is through a histological liver biopsy (Sosa, 2014). However, there are many risks for the procedure, most patients are immunocompromised and thrombocytopenic post-transplant, therefore a biopsy may not be the safest method of treatment. According to Sosa (2014), criteria for diagnoses are usually based on the Seattle criteria, developed by McDonald in 1984 and the Baltimore criteria, developed by Jones in 1987. These criteria have been used for clinical practice and research for over three decades. McDonald et al. developed the Seattle criteria and diagnosed VOD/SOS based on the two or more of these conditions occurring within 20 days post-transplant: serum bilirubin greater than 2 mg/dL, enlarged liver or right upper quadrant pain and sudden weight gain of 2% or more from baseline, jaundice or ascites. Jones et al. (1987), using the Baltimore method, characterized VOD/SOS as serum bilirubin > 2 mg/dL within 21 days post-transplant, 2 more of the following: hepatomegaly, ascites and 5% or greater weight gain. Sosa (2014), suggests that “an accurate diagnosis can

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