By Staff Reports
(Hawaii)– From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
Some diseases are literally bad to the bone. Conditions like leukemia are diseases of marrow, the blood cell-forming material inside bone. Chemotherapy for some other cancers also damages the marrow. One important tool to help people recover is to transplant cells, called peripheral blood stem cells, or PBSCs, that can produce healthy cells.
For a patient to get PBSCs, though, someone has to give them, and giving sounds painful. But the director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Dr. Griffin Rodgers, says it’s not, really.
“PBSC doesn’t require surgery, anesthesia, or staying overnight at the hospital, and most donations are done in just one session.”
The donation could save someone’s life.
Learn more at healthfinder.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.