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Ombilical Cord Blood

After the baby's birth, usually the umbilical cord is discarded along with the placenta. However, researchers have found that blood retrieved from the umbilical cord is a rich source of primary cells. The cells are primordial cells that produce non-specialists all other blood cells, including platelets and red blood cells coagulants and whites. Like the donated bone marrow, umbilical cord blood can be used to treat various genetic disorders affecting the blood and the immune system, leukemia and certain cancers, and some inherited disorders biochemists. To date, more than 45 disorders that can be treated with cells of primary umbilical cord blood.

Currently, there are commercial companies that offer a service to parents for the storage of cord blood from her baby. Prospective parents who are considering this option should gather as much information as possible to make an informed decision.

What are the primary cells are valuable and why?
The primary blood cells, which in most cases are deep in the bone marrow, are the factory's bloodstream. In permanently perform new copies of themselves and produce cells that produce almost all other types of blood cells. The primordial cells are essential for the success of bone marrow transplantation, as they continue to produce blood cells in indefinitely.

The bone marrow transplants can save the lives of people suffering from leukaemia (cancer of white blood cells) and other cancers, or people with serious blood disorders like aplastic anemia, in which the body does not produce enough cells blood. The primordial cells can help improve the production capacity of a person's blood and immune system when they are affected by a defect inherited (genetic) or when they have suffered severe damage or were deliberately destroyed by cancer treatments. Currently, donated bone marrow is the most common source of primary cells.

What are the advantages of the primordial cells of umbilical cord blood?
Studies suggest that the primordial cells of umbilical cord blood offer some important advantages over those taken from bone marrow. On the one hand, the primordial cells of umbilical cord blood are much easier to obtain since it can be taken immediately from the placenta at birth. The collection of primordial cells from the bone marrow requires a surgical procedure, usually with general anesthesia, which can cause post-operative pain and represents a small risk to the donor.

It is the widest range of eligible recipients with primary cells from the umbilical cord. These can be stored and re-transplanted into the donor, a family member or a receiver without family relationship. For a bone marrow transplant is successful, there must be an almost perfect correspondence of certain proteins tissue between the donor and recipient. When using the cell's primary umbilical cord blood, the donor cells appear to be more likely to "take" or grafted, even when there is complete correspondence between tissues.

A potentially fatal complication called graft versus host disease (GVHD, in English), in which donor cells can attack the tissues of the receiver, seems to occur less frequently with cord blood than bone marrow. This could be because the cord blood has a mute and certain immune system cells, usually active in an immune reaction, have not yet been educated to attack the recipient. A study in 2000 found that children who received a transplant of umbilical cord blood from a sibling with a high correspondence were 59 percent less likely to develop GVHD that children who received a transplant of bone marrow same way.

The use of umbilical cord blood can cause cell transplants available more quickly paramount for people who need them. Each year, approximately 30,000 people diagnosed with conditions that can be treated with a bone marrow transplant. Approximately 25 percent of these people have a relative whose tissue is compatible. While for many people can locate suitable donors across national bone marrow registries, the process can take months. Donors are located within four months to about 50 percent of patients. It is often harder to find a person with compatible bone marrow for members of ethnic and racial groups not white. Transplants of umbilical cord blood to allow a larger quantity of persons belonging to these groups access to treatment more quickly. The primary cells of umbilical cord blood stored in banks may be more readily available, which sometimes is of particular importance for patients with severe cases of leukemia, anemia or immune who would otherwise die before they can find someone compatible.

The cord blood is also less likely to contain certain infectious agents, as some viruses that can pose a risk to transplant recipients. Also, some studies suggest that cord blood can have a greater capacity than the bone marrow to generate new blood cells. In every ounce of umbilical cord blood, there is almost ten times larger quantity of blood-producing cells. This suggests that a smaller quantity of primary cells of the umbilical cord blood for transplantation is successful.

Also, the primordial cells of umbilical cord blood offer some interesting possibilities of gene therapy for certain genetic diseases, especially those related to the immune system. Dr. Donald Kohn, and colleagues from Children's Hospital of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and the University of California at San Francisco, made the first attempt at gene therapy cord blood in 1993 in three children suffering from adenosine deaminase deficiency (ADA), a potentially fatal defect that paralyzes the immune system. Children also received special treatment with drugs, appeared healthy at the time, although his blood now carries only a small amount of the introduced gene in their cells paramount.