It is possible to use very high doses of chemotherapy or radiation to kill cancer cells, but these treatments also kill the blood-making stem cells in the bone marrow. Damage to these cells lowers a person's blood cell count. Having too few white blood cells can lead to severe infections that could be fatal. A person can bleed easily if they have too few platelets. This, too, can be fatal.
One way to get around this is to remove some of the patient's stem cells from either the peripheral (circulating) blood or the bone marrow, give the high-dose treatment, and then return the stem cells to the body through a blood transfusion. The stem cells are able to find their way back into the bone marrow, where they soon re-establish themselves and restore the body's ability to make new blood cells.
At one time it was thought that this would be a good way to treat people with advanced breast cancer. However, several studies found that women who received high-dose chemotherapy did not live any longer than women who received standard chemotherapy without a stem cell transplant. High-dose chemotherapy with stem cell support also caused more serious side effects than standard dose chemotherapy. A single small study in men had results similar to those obtained in women.
At this time, This is not a standard treatment for breast cancer and most experts recommend that this only be used in the treatment of breast cancer as part of a clinical trial.
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