Blood Cells

They're critical building blocks of the body. They can restore a damaged blood-forming system and create the white and red blood cells and platelets that help the body heal, carry oxygen to tissues and fight off infections. They may be the key to treating leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, lymphoma and Fanconi's anemia. But the usual source of the so-called stem cells has been the bone marrow - and obtaining them requires expensive bone-marrow transplants, an exact donor match, and willing donors for a painful operation.

Still groggy from painkillers, Maddie Major, 7, clutched her stuffed Pooh Bear and laid her head on her father's shoulder as he carried her to the hospital cafeteria. Maddie, dad Tim, mom Robyn, and big sister Candace spent that February morning at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where a doctor extracted samples of the child's spinal fluid and bone marrow. In a few days, the biopsies would reveal whether Maddie's leukemia had been wiped out by an experimental gene therapy made from her own white blood cells - crucial disease fighters called T cells.

Jock Davis smiled and sat up on his bed at Pennsylvania Hospital last week, looking more like a guy on vacation than on high-dose chemotherapy for a blood cancer called multiple myeloma. He had come all the way from Rochester, N.Y., for a stem cell transplant because Patricia Ford, the doctor directing his care, was willing to withhold a standard part of the multi-week treatment: a blood transfusion. As a Jehovah's Witness, Davis, 48, has religious objections to receiving blood, including his own. Ford, director of the hospital's Center for Bloodless Medicine and Surgery, performed the world's first no-transfusion stem cell transplant more than 15 years ago. While most centers still consider it too risky to attempt, Ford keeps making history.

Is there donor DNA in transfused blood? Q: Since our DNA can be detected from our blood, do we also pick up a blood donor's DNA when we receive a blood transfusion? A: The short answer is no. When we receive blood, we are not usually receiving a blood donor's whole blood; rather, only the red blood cells. The DNA resides in a cell's nucleus, and since mature red blood cells don't have a nucleus they don't have any DNA material. Whole blood contains not only red blood cells, but also other components like serum, white blood cells, platelets, and antibodies.

Question: Can you explain acute myelogenous leukemia? Someone we know was recently diagnosed with it, and two weeks later he was dead. What makes it so deadly? Answer: Acute myelogenous leukemia, or AML, is a cancer of the blood in which immature, abnormal white blood cells grow rapidly and uncontrollably in the bone marrow and interfere with its ability to produce red blood cells, healthy white blood cells, and platelets. It's a fairly rare cancer, with men affected more often than women.

Question: I am a virile, sexually active, middle-aged male. Prior to engaging in sex, my partner and I enjoy imbibing alcoholic beverages to loosen up/set the mood. How is it that alcohol has a positive effect on achieving an erection? Would testosterone supplements help? ?Answer: Alcohol, in moderate quantities, helps to reduce anxiety, stress, and inhibition through its role as a central nervous suppressor. Psychological impotence and performance anxiety can be helped by a modest amount of alcohol before initiating sex. It can slow the heart rate and increase the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system - the nerves that regulate digestion, slow down the heart rate, and increase the flow of blood into the penis and clitoris.

A naturally occurring protein that could "revolutionize" cancer treatment produced promising results in the first test on patients with malfunctioning bone marrow, researchers reported yesterday. "We're very, very encouraged," said Jordan U. Gutterman, chairman of the department of clinical immunology and biological therapy at the M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute in Houston, who headed the study published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine. "I think this is going to revolutionize chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Competitive athletes always seem to look for the winning edge, that special ingredient to help them run faster or jump higher than their opponents. Some training methods, such as strength building or nutritional planning, legitimately help mold men and women into superior competitors and make them better contenders than the next athlete. Other elements include steroids, which are illegal, synthetic stimulants that temporarily provide athletes with an artificial means of improving their performances.

Charlotte Weiner Yudis, 67, a printmaker and museum guide from Moorestown, died of lung cancer Jan. 9 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Yudis studied art while volunteering as a guide at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and in 1990 took a printmaking class at the Fleisher Art Memorial in South Philadelphia. She had medical laboratory experience and began using human blood cells to create art in a way "no one else had ever done," said her husband, Charles.

Q: A few months ago, I had a bone marrow exam that revealed I have myelophthisic anemia. I'm wondering if there is any way at all to combat this syndrome, which I understand is rare? A: Myelophthisic anemia is due to failure of the bone marrow to produce enough blood cells. This occurs when the blood-forming cells in the marrow are replaced by other tissue. For instance, cancer cells that spread to the bone marrow (from distant sites) will eventually crowd out marrow cells, leading to anemia and - sometimes - to a platelet deficiency and abnormal white blood cells.

Still groggy from painkillers, Maddie Major, 7, clutched her stuffed Pooh Bear and laid her head on her father's shoulder as he carried her to the hospital cafeteria. Maddie, dad Tim, mom Robyn, and big sister Candace spent that February morning at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where a doctor extracted samples of the child's spinal fluid and bone marrow. In a few days, the biopsies would reveal whether Maddie's leukemia had been wiped out by an experimental gene therapy made from her own white blood cells - crucial disease fighters called T cells.

Is there donor DNA in transfused blood? Q: Since our DNA can be detected from our blood, do we also pick up a blood donor's DNA when we receive a blood transfusion? A: The short answer is no. When we receive blood, we are not usually receiving a blood donor's whole blood; rather, only the red blood cells. The DNA resides in a cell's nucleus, and since mature red blood cells don't have a nucleus they don't have any DNA material. Whole blood contains not only red blood cells, but also other components like serum, white blood cells, platelets, and antibodies.

INDIANAPOLIS - It took Chuck Pagano less than 9 months to instill his fighter's mentality and hopeful spirit in the Indianapolis Colts. He will need both to survive the biggest battle of his life - leukemia. In a somber news conference Monday - one day before Pagano's 52nd birthday - the Colts announced that their new coach had been hospitalized for cancer treatment and probably would not return to full coaching duties this season. He will be replaced on an interim basis by offensive coordinator Bruce Arians, who coached at Temple from 1983-88.

The Inquirer is presenting one profile a day of participants in Sunday's Blue Cross Broad Street Run. See full coverage at www.philly.com/broadstreetrun. By Michael Vitez INQUIRER STAFF WRITER In 2009, in his Chester County kitchen, Tom Kramer turned frustration and desperation into inspiration. He would turn what he loved — running, training — into a cause that could save the life of his wife, Pam, and the lives of many like her. Pam has a rare form of blood cancer, myelofibrosis, that eats away at her bone marrow and will eventually be fatal.

Question: I am a virile, sexually active, middle-aged male. Prior to engaging in sex, my partner and I enjoy imbibing alcoholic beverages to loosen up/set the mood. How is it that alcohol has a positive effect on achieving an erection? Would testosterone supplements help? ?Answer: Alcohol, in moderate quantities, helps to reduce anxiety, stress, and inhibition through its role as a central nervous suppressor. Psychological impotence and performance anxiety can be helped by a modest amount of alcohol before initiating sex. It can slow the heart rate and increase the activity of the parasympathetic nervous system - the nerves that regulate digestion, slow down the heart rate, and increase the flow of blood into the penis and clitoris.

Question: Can you explain acute myelogenous leukemia? Someone we know was recently diagnosed with it, and two weeks later he was dead. What makes it so deadly? Answer: Acute myelogenous leukemia, or AML, is a cancer of the blood in which immature, abnormal white blood cells grow rapidly and uncontrollably in the bone marrow and interfere with its ability to produce red blood cells, healthy white blood cells, and platelets. It's a fairly rare cancer, with men affected more often than women.

Gayle Levick Goldglantz, 62, of Elkins Park, a medical-practice manager who endured four kidney transplants in a history-making fight for life, died of cancer at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse on Sunday, Oct. 16, the day before her 40th wedding anniversary. Mrs. Goldglantz discovered she had kidney disease after a blood test for her marriage license in 1971. "The doctors told us we would have a very bleak future," her husband, Harvey, later told The Inquirer. In 1976 and 1977, Mrs. Goldglantz had two kidney transplants from cadavers; the organs were rejected after one month and one week.

NEW YORK - Scientists are reporting the first clear success with a new approach for treating leukemia - turning the patients' own blood cells into assassins that hunt and destroy their cancer cells. They've done it in only three patients so far, but the results were striking: Two appear cancer-free up to a year after treatment, and the third patient is improved but still has some cancer. Scientists are already preparing to try the same gene-therapy technique for other kinds of cancer.

Jock Davis smiled and sat up on his bed at Pennsylvania Hospital last week, looking more like a guy on vacation than on high-dose chemotherapy for a blood cancer called multiple myeloma. He had come all the way from Rochester, N.Y., for a stem cell transplant because Patricia Ford, the doctor directing his care, was willing to withhold a standard part of the multi-week treatment: a blood transfusion. As a Jehovah's Witness, Davis, 48, has religious objections to receiving blood, including his own. Ford, director of the hospital's Center for Bloodless Medicine and Surgery, performed the world's first no-transfusion stem cell transplant more than 15 years ago. While most centers still consider it too risky to attempt, Ford keeps making history.

Charlotte Weiner Yudis, 67, a printmaker and museum guide from Moorestown, died of lung cancer Jan. 9 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Yudis studied art while volunteering as a guide at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and in 1990 took a printmaking class at the Fleisher Art Memorial in South Philadelphia. She had medical laboratory experience and began using human blood cells to create art in a way "no one else had ever done," said her husband, Charles.