Why Save Cord Blood?
The umbilical cord and the umbilical cord blood is discarded as medical waste after the hospital draws samples for their testing...unless the mother choses to bank the cord blood.
A Perfect Match
While it’s something no new parents want to think about, if your child should ever need a stem cell transplant, his or her very own match will be on reserve. This significantly reduces critical time to start treatment. And, there are no rejection issues – dramatically increasing the chances of a successful transplant.
A Potential Match For Another Family Member
Although not a perfect match, banked stem cells could potentially be used to treat siblings should there be a close match.
Life-Saving Resource for Disease Treatment
Stem cells are now being used to successfully treat more than 70 diseases including leukemia, anemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and other cancers, and impaired immune systems. Researchers are encouraged by the rapidly expanding potential of the medical applications of cord blood stem cells.
Today more than 60 clinical trials with umbilical cord blood sponsored by the National Institutes of Health are underway, with numerous others around the world to address heart disease, cerebral palsy, diabetes, lung disease, liver disease, and other serious ailments.
Clinical research results reported in the June 9, 2007 issue of the Lancet indicate that cord blood stem cell transplantation is now considered the therapy of choice for treating children with leukemia. This is evidenced in the recent case published in Pediatrics, January 3, 2007. The child stored her cord blood with CorCell, developed leukemia, was treated with her own cord blood stem cells, and five years later is leukemia-free.
