A cross-sectional study to assess the knowledge regarding stem cells and its transplantation among students from various colleges & women from anc clinic in Indore

A crosssectional study to assess the knowledge regarding stem cells and its transplantation among students from various colleges & women from anc clinic in Indore Yesikar V.1, Banseria R.2*, Dixit S.3, Shivram G.4 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17511/ijphr.2016.i4.04 1 Veena Yesikar, Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, MGM Medical College, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. 2* Ruchita Banseria, Resident, Department of Community Medicine, MGM Medical College, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. 3 Sanjay Dixit, Professor & Head, Department of Community Medicine, MGM Medical College, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. 4 Geeta Shivram, Demonstrator, Department of Community Medicine, MGM Medical College, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India.


Introduction
Stem cell transplantation (SCT) is a life-saving procedure for a number of malignant and nonmalignant life-threatening diseases [1]. Umbilical cord blood (UCB) which was thought to be a waste material earlier, is considered now a valuable thing.
As it is an important source of hematopoietic stem cells, a stem cell transplant is the infusion of healthy cells to replace diseased or damaged ones.
If successful, the healthy replacement stem cells will integrate into the body and give rise to more cells that can all take on the necessary functions of a specific tissue. Umbilical Cord Blood also contains stem cells that can differentiate into other types, such as cartilage, fat, hepatic, cardiac, and neural cells, fuelling speculation about the use of cord blood stem cells for regenerative medicine. More than 40,000 SCTs are being performed annually worldwide [2].
In India, progress has been slow and the number of transplants performed till now is around 500 [2].
The procedure itself has many technical variations according to the primary disease, age of the patient, facilities available, and experience of the centre. In terms of cost effectiveness, a SCT performed early is more beneficial than conventional treatment with eventually fatal results.
In India, the largest potential load of patients are those suffering from thalassemia major. In this condition, allogeneic SCT is the only form of cure, and is clearly cost effective compared to conventional blood transfusions and iron chelation Therapy. Chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) is potentially curable with allogeneic SCT, and the cost per added year of life is much less than with drugs like interferon.
In multiple myeloma, autologous SCT is now a standard therapy [2]. The facilities for SCT in India are increasing at acceptable rate but focus needs to done on increasing awareness of its optimal utilization [3,4]. This study has been done with an objective to find out the awareness regarding stem cells, knowledge about regenerative medicine and tissue replacement after injury or disease in students from medical and non -medical profession, and to know the difference of knowledge among two groups, and to know about the knowledge, attitude and expectation of Ante-natal mothers regarding the same.

Materials and Methods
This was a Cross-sectional study conducted on 80 undergraduate medical students of MGM Medical  followed by students of Non-medical stream i.e.

Figure-1: What is the source of information
regarding the terminology (stem cells?)    Thalassemia and Cancer. This seems to be fairly good percentage and also draws attention to the fact that youths are concerned with knowledge not only in their field but also exploring other issues.
More than 80% of medical students considered it to be a life saving procedure.
With this concept in mind these students will surely think of stem cell storage in the future years.

Antenatal mothers
In total the average knowledge of antenatal women was fairly good this was higher than was seen in other studies from Canada and Europe [8,9]. This high percentage could be because of the bias in choosing sample as antenatal women as they are continuously exposed to medical fraternity. As it is shown that UCB cells have their unique qualities and potential, and so consequently UCB banks might dramatically increase the scope of their clinical application [13].