الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Stem cells are cells that have the ability to divide giving rise to specialized cells. Sources of these cells include embryo, umbilical cord and certain sites in adults such as the central nervous system and bone marrow. Its use hold promise of wide spread applications particularly in areas of spinal cord injury, difficult non-unions, critical bone defects, spinal fusions, augmentation of ligament reconstructions, cartilage repair and degenerative disc disorders. Stem cells and cancer are linked; the process of carcinogenesis initially affects normal stem cells or their closely related progenitors and then at some point, neoplastic stem cells are generated that propagate and ultimately maintain the process. Many if not all cancers contain a minority population of self-renewing stem cells, “cancer stem cells”, that are entirely responsible for sustaining the tumour and for giving rise to proliferating but progressively differentiating cells that contribute to the cellular heterogeneity typical of many solid tumours. Thus, the bulk of the tumour is often not the clinical problem, and so the identification of cancer stem cells and the factors that regulate their behaviour are likely to have an enormous bearing on the way that we treat neoplastic disease.