Regenerative medicine has made great advances in recent years. Stem cell treatments for Cushing’s disease are an example of this, since it is a pathology that afflicts many people today. Therefore, below we will tell you what these medical and scientific procedures consist of.
What is Cushing’s syndrome and how does it occur?
Cushing’s syndrome occurs when the body produces too much of the hormone cortisol. This can occur due to the presence of tumors. In addition, the syndrome can also be caused by the intake of drugs that suppress the body’s natural cortisol, but this only occurs in a few cases.
Among the symptoms and signs of the pathology are:
- Increase of adipose tissues (weight gain) in places such as the face, shoulders and back.
- Pink or purple striae.
- Fragile skin that may present hematomas or blood-filled tumors.
- A lot of acne.
- Slow wound healing.
- In some cases, it can lead to diabetes, high blood pressure and osteoporosis.
Also, it should be noted that the pathology arises from a specific cause. We are referring to the fact that it is very likely that small tumors are found surrounding the pituitary gland. The action taken by the body is to create a lot of cortisol to fight it and try to eliminate the harmful cells.
What could a stem cell treatment consist of?
We are talking about a syndrome that is produced by the lack of control of the organism. More specifically, in the pituitary gland. However, the cause is known, which is the presence of tumors and, in some cases, the consumption of cortisol-containing drugs.
The main idea is that stem cell treatments are focused on reprogramming some of the cells of the gland itself. The result would then be that the tumors would stop growing and the body’s cortisol would return to normal levels.
The role of stem cells here will be to help produce a drug capable of performing this cellular reprogramming.
A news item published by cordis.europa announced a finding by a team of scientists proposing the reprogramming of the identity of cells located in the pituitary gland. The results obtained could be the start of a more solid treatment for Cushing’s syndrome using stem cells.
To be more specific, it means that, through special drugs, a change is induced in the cells so that they produce antibodies that attack the tumors housed in the gland.
Stem cells will provide the necessary information so that the drugs are capable of performing this reprogramming.
Currently, there are not a large number of stem cell treatments for Cushing’s syndrome. However, research with these cells has provided very good results and, perhaps, very soon we will see fully effective treatments.
