New treatment for young cerebral palsy patients using baby cord blood banking

Picture
The world is fully aware about the role played by the umbilical cord stem cells in treatment of various diseases. Recently Australian researchers came to know about one more revolutionary treatment of the umbilical cord blood. Researchers of Melbourne medical center told that now Australasian children suffering from cerebral palsy would be able to get treatment through cord blood. The scientists are engaged to get an approval for a clinical trial at Monash Medical Centre of Melbourne. Once they would get an ethical approval, scientists would engage themselves to do trial on twenty children.

The main objective behind conducting the research is to confirm whether cord stem cells are effective in repairing the damage of brain tissue or cerebral palsy. North Carolina’s University of Duke Professor Joanne Kurtzberg is busy with research in this particular field for last five years. Professor Kurtzberg has been infusing cord blood with cerebral palsy of about two hundred and fifty children over this time duration. There is no published scientific detail for the effectiveness of treatment.  However, the researchers of Australia are highly involved in understanding the impact on children’s brain suffering from cerebral palsy. Kurtzberg said that this treatment is completely safe and feasible for such patients.

Recently parents from Brisbane, Archer family travelled to America for the treatment of their son suffering from epilepsy and cerebral palsy. The cord blood transplant was done four months earlier and their son has shown an improvement to a large extent. The significance of cord blood comes to light as the blood found in placenta or baby cord is always rich in large amount of stem cells. The stem cells further develop into other types of cells in human body. According to the obstetrics Health Director Professor Euan Wallace told that several animal studies have suggested that the stem cells found in cord blood show effective treatment for the repair and assistance of different brain injuries .

According to a theory, these stem cells go to the injured region of the brain and start generating cells out there for the repair. However, scientists are not sure what the exact phenomenon is.  All the children under trial will be soon be provided with the blood and complete neurological assessment. They would be then randomly invoked with the cord blood either straight away or three months before they would be assessed again. The cord blood taken from baby cord blood banking has shown numerous benefits like treatment of blood disorders and also in regeneration of lost appendages or damaged organs.

The under trial children might receive the cord blood either from the private or public bank. Mark Kirkland Medical Director and Associate Professor of Cell care center, a private cord blood bank says that the trial is one of its first kind which is being done for the assessment of effectiveness of cord blood stem cells against a number of diseases. After continuous research for several years now it has been proved that cord blood shows bundle of therapies against several fatal diseases. These include treatment for diabetes, spinal cord injury, liver, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer disease. Now, there would be one more addition to the success of this trial that is of repairing of brain disease.