Cord Blood Stem Cell Collection
Early during this year, a medical study conducted by doctor Kurtzberg demonstrated that umbilical cord blood stem cells transplant is also effective and a life-saving treatment for newborns with infantile Krabbe's disease. This rare disease is an inherited degenerative disorder that affects the nervous system. Most infants with this disease die within the first two years of life. These new findings are added to the nearly 75 diseases list where stem cells therapy is being used currently, achieving more than a hundred diseases that can be treated with cord blood stem cells. These lysosomal storage diseases includes: Krabbe's disease, Hurler syndrome, Adrenoleukodystrophy, metachromatic leukodystrophy, Tay-Sachs disease, Sandhoff disease, and many others.
All the infants involved in the study who received cord blood transplants as newborns, are still alive, with the oldest reaching an age of 6 years and a half, up to four years after an untreated sibling with the same disorder died. What is more important is that most newborns treated before the symptoms started displayed constant improvement in developmental skills and exhibited age-appropriate mental and language abilities.
Previous studies proved that individuals with late onset Krabbe's disease were benefited with stem cells bone marrow transplantation. However, stored umbilical cord blood is much more readily available than bone marrow stem cells, and can be used for infant stem cell transplantation right after they are treated with chemotherapy.
Blood cell collection cord stem allows the long-term preservation of healthy and viable stem cells that can be used by a family member with a medical history of a disease that can be treated using cord blood stem cells therapy. In recent researches, stem cell therapy has proved to be effective and successful for several types of cancers, blood and immune disorders, so new applications are being studied worldwide to increase the use of cord blood stem cells in for instance, heart, liver, nervous, muscle, and cartilage tissue regeneration. The potential benefits of cord blood stem cell transplantation are yet uncertain but scientists are very optimistic and still working hard on this field.
A large number of patients waiting for bone marrow transplantation are receiving blood cell collection cord stem therapy and saving precious time, due to stem cells from umbilical cord are significantly easier to match in comparison with bone marrow stem cells. Following the birth of a baby, the umbilical cord has been usually discarded along with the placenta. Nowadays, all expecting parents have the chance of saving their baby’s cord blood for the family’s potential use, or to donate it and benefit a large number of people. Donated bone marrow and umbilical cord blood can be used to treat various genetic disorders that affect the blood and immune system, certain cancers, and some inherited disorders of body chemistry.