Peris-Mencheta, waiting for a bone marrow transplant

2024-01-22 15:19:48

The actor and theater director Sergio Peris-Mencheta announced this Monday on his Instagram profile that he is receiving chemotherapy as a prior step to undergoing a bone marrow transplant. What does this treatment consist of?

The actor and director Sergio Peris-Mencheta in a photograph from April 2022. EFE/Miguel Osés

Although Peris-Mencheta (Madrid, 1975) has not mentioned the word cancer in this network, it is usual that a bone marrow transplant with previous chemotherapy It may respond to an approach to some of the blood cancers (such as leukemias, lymphomas or multiple myeloma, among others).

“In this last draw I didn’t get the usual numbers. I am in the middle of the chemo process and a subsequent bone marrow transplant. And I have to play with a different hand this time,” she explained.

Bone marrow transplant is the generic name by which we know the hematopoietic stem cell transplant.

First of all, we must explain that the bone marrow is the inner tissue of some bones in the body where we make stem cells, which are responsible for producing all the blood and immune system cells, according to detailed information from the More Foundation. that Ideas in collaboration with the Spanish Group of Hematopoietic Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (GETH) of the Spanish Society of Hematology and Hemotherapy (IT’S OKAY).

How is a bone marrow transplant performed?

Diseases such as leukemias, lymphomas, multiple myeloma, aplastic anemia or myelodysplastic syndrome are caused by excessive, insufficient or abnormal production of blood cells and transplantation is positioned as a treatment option.

First, the patient receives chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or a combination of both to kill the abnormal cells.

To restore bone marrow function, it is necessary to administer healthy hematopoietic stem cells that will replace the previous ones and allow the marrow to produce normal cells again.

Types of bone marrow transplants

According to the donor:

• Autologous or autotransplant: Autopoietic stem cells come from yourself. Cells that are not affected after having received previous chemotherapy or radiotherapy treatment are collected.
• Syngenic: when they come from a twin brother.
• Allogeneic: when they come from a healthy donor who may be a compatible family member or from an unrelated donor from donor banks.
• Haploidicstem cells from a relative who shares only half of the genes.

Depending on the origin of the stem cells:

• The ones that extract directly of the bone marrow.
• From progenitor cells peripherally blood: cells mobilized from the bone marrow to the blood.
• Umbilical cord blood: those that are extracted from the blood of the umbilical cord and placenta at the time of the birth of a baby.

Blood extraction for treatments during bone marrow transplant. EFE/Rungroj Yongrit

Depending on the type of drugs received before the administration of the stem cells:

• Conventional or myeloablative: high doses of chemotherapy, associated or not with radiotherapy.
• Reduced intensity, non-myeloablative or mini-transplant: of lower intensity and indicated for those people who have not been able to receive a conventional one.

The indication for a transplant or another depends on several factors such as the type of disease, the response obtained to previous treatments, the availability of a donor, age, physical health, weight or other complications.

“I am like only those who have experienced a situation similar to mine know. “I feel more vulnerable, terrified and small than ever, and for a few months now I have been valuing each of my steps on earth,” shared Peris-Mencheta, director of the play “Una noche sin luna”, which won the Max award for best theater show, or performer of “The Borgias”, among other series and films.

“I feel more vulnerable, terrified and small than ever, and for a few months now I have been valuing each of my steps on earth,” he admits.

Actor Sergio Peris-Mencheta states: “I know that in this game I don’t completely decide. I know that life rules, and that there is a part where I have to trust and let myself go. But my pockets are full of dice, and I crush them all the time. “And I have always been very six”