About stem cells
Stem cells are used to treat many different cancers, immune deficiencies and genetic disorders.
What are stem cells?
Bone marrow, the soft, spongy tissue found in the centre of certain bones in your body, produces blood stem cells.
Stem cells are the 'building blocks' of the body as they can mature into any of the other normal blood cells, like:
- red cells that carry oxygen
- white cells that fight infection
- platelets that stop bleeding
Who stem cells help
There are a number of diseases that can prevent a person's bone marrow from working properly.
Although chemotherapy will successfully treat some people with these diseases, for many the only possibility of a cure is to have a stem cell transplant from a healthy donor.
Stem cells can help people with:
- cancer
- leukaemia
- aplastic anaemia
- other diseases of the immune system
Why we need more stem cell donors
In some cases, a donor can be found from within the patient's family.
However 70% of people must rely on a matched volunteer, like our amazing donors.
This is because the patient and donor need to have the same tissue type (known as a HLA type).
There are many millions of potential tissue type combinations, which is why we always need more donors.
Find out more about how stem cell patients are matched with donors.
It felt special to be able to help someone in this way and I would do it again in a heartbeatSethu donated stem cells to save the life of a complete stranger
Could you be a lifesaver?
Right now we need more people to join the register to donate stem cells.