Doctors in Wuhan City, capital of central China's Hubei province announced Wednesday that they have found a new way to counter the human body's rejection of transplanted bone marrow.
Doctors with the Union Hospital found that placing a ligand named FASL into hemopoietic stem cells of recipients will destroy a certain sort of lymphocyte that causes rejection of donated bone marrow.
The effect of the new treatment has been tested in experiments on animals and the hospital is doing relevant clinical examinations, said Zou Ping, head of the hospital's research group.
The treatment will considerably increase the possibility of a successful bone marrow transplant, she said.
Zou and her colleagues also proved Interleukin-2 (IL-2) is effective in making transplanted bone marrow stronger.
Bone marrow transplants are proven to be one of the most effective methods of treating leukemia and other blood diseases, but many operations fail because new bone marrow is too weak to survive or rejects the recipient body.
(Xinhua News Agency February 20, 2003)
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