Many people fall into cheap, rejuvenated stem cell traps
Many products advertised as stem cells are being sold online for only a few hundred thousand VND, promising to cure all diseases, rejuvenate, and beautify the skin. However, doctors warn that this is an exaggerated advertising trick, which can cause users to "lose money and suffer from illness".
Ms. D. T. L (35 years old, Hanoi City) was advised by a beauty establishment to inject a course of 10 stem cell vials worth 550,000 VND with advertisements to help increase collagen production, remove melasma, and rejuvenate the skin. After a week, she developed many blisters and infection with Staphylococcus aureus.
Immediately after that, Ms. L went to the Central Dermatology Hospital for treatment and received advice from the doctor: not stem cells but non-pure preparations, combined with sterile injection procedures leading to dermatitis and infection. In fact, they may just be endocrine stimulants, creating a feeling of health and temporary rejuvenation, but the long-term consequences are not clear. Even if the infection is cured, the injections are at risk of leaving pitted scars.
Stem cells are not panacea
At the conference "Growth cells: From clinical research to practical application" organized by Health and Life Newspaper on July 18, Dr. Nguyen Tien Dung - Director of the Institute of Research and Application of Cell Technology said: Stem cells are opening up many prospects in the treatment of blood cancer, hematology and regenerative medicine. Regenerative medicine is creating many advances in the treatment of incurable diseases, in which the application of stem cells is one of the outstanding achievements. In Vietnam, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation technology has been successfully implemented in many specialized hospitals, contributing to improving the treatment efficiency for patients.
However, people should not "sanify" this technology or believe in advertisements that cure "all diseases", because treatment indications must be based on scientific evidence and performed at qualified medical facilities.
Dr. Han Viet Trung - Center for Hematology - Blood Transfusion, Hospital 19-8, said that hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is an important step forward in the treatment of hematological diseases, especially malignant blood diseases. At the center, the number of patients with malignant blood diseases tends to increase and the addition of stem cell transplantation to the treatment regimen significantly improves survival time compared to simple chemotherapy.
However, the effectiveness of stem cells does not mean that this is a treatment method that can be applied to all diseases," Dr. Han Viet Trung emphasized.
Dr. Nguyen Tien Dung added that in reality, many patients are overly expectant, considering stem cells as a cure for all diseases. However, to treat with stem cells, patients must be examined, diagnosed and indicated to the right subjects to ensure treatment effectiveness as well as avoid wasting costs.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Toan Thang - a regenerative medicine expert - affirmed that no therapy can cure all diseases and stem cells are no exception. Applications that do not have sufficient scientific evidence should not be widely deployed or over-advertised.
He warned that making promises beyond scientific evidence not only causes misunderstandings but can also cause patients to miss the right time for treatment, and at the same time bear an additional financial burden.
In Vietnam, stem cell research and application has been implemented for quite a long time, and more and more hospitals are licensed for therapy.
Currently, the Ministry of Health has allowed the use of stem cells to treat a number of diseases such as blood diseases (osteomyelitis, blood cancer); blood diseases requiring bone marrow transplantation, osteoarthritis; lung diseases (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease COPD)...
