Saturday, 9 July 2011

Cord Blood Stem Cells Are Changing The Direction Of Health Care

By Adriana Noton


Science is taking medicine into the future with regenerative capabilities through the use of cord blood stem cells. Two decades of transplant medicine is opening research to a future that enables the body to repair itself. New regenerative treatments are providing new hope for stimulating repair of brain injuries, autoimmune disease, endocrine conditions and cardiopulmonary damage.

Many ethicists and physicians agree that stem cells derived at childbirth from the placenta and umbilical cord blood are ethical, as the newborn baby no longer has need of it and the material is traditionally discarded following birth. Newborn placental fluids hold the promise of regeneration of the body impacted by medical conditions and the related damage disease incurs.

The body's master cells, available in newborn placental material, offers many benefits over bone marrow, for patients in critical need of additional blood and immune system regeneration. Frozen product is preserved and readily available, entailing little risk of complications, creating a cellular product ideal for cancer and chemotherapy patients. The advantages of rapid, safer, efficacious, regenerative medicine is crucial in the dire circumstances of critical patients.

The placenta outranks the umbilical cord at a ratio of ten to one in the number of available stem cells present in the fluid. The efficacy of the transplantation directly correlates to the greatest numbers, producing the most beneficial medical outcome with abbreviated recovery time and lessened risk of complications. At birth, this cellular fluid is extracted from the placenta by way of the cord.

The exciting realm of regenerative medicine is a work in progress toward the time when newborn, placental material induces healing or regeneration that repairs organ tissues. As knowledge expands the uses for cord blood it increases the probability for their use in families. Today that equates to a likelihood of one in (217) individuals, during their lifetime, utilizing autologous transplant material or a compatible match from someone else.

As the viable applications for regenerative medicine grow, families may want to consider the option of banking autologous placental tissue for the possibility of its relevance in the future. Those who have prepared through the storage of this transplant medicine will be eliminating the risk of complicating factors, such as rejection.

Graft versus Host Disease is one of the most common and devastating side effect of transplantation when using cellular fluid from another donor to treat the patient. It remains the leading cause of death following transplant, making it a critical issue. This life-threatening complication results from the body recognizing the material as foreign and attacking it. Family banked, newborn, placental fluid reduces this possibility.

Clinical research trials are underway today examining the impact of infusion of stem cell fluid into children with new diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes. Studies are in progress for diverse treatments for stroke, hearing loss and cerebral palsy. Exciting effective treatments are being explored in animal modalities for cardiovascular repair due to infarctions via regenerative medicine.

Harvested cord blood stem cells are cryopreserved, a freezing process that stops the clock, protecting the cellular fluid from environmental effects, aging and common viruses that can negatively affect the body in time. This collected material is stored in a cord blood bank for future transplantation. These banks are either private storage for exclusive genetic material or public storage that provides for unrelated donors.




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