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Stem cell awareness
iAfrica.com
23 Sep 2009
Given the massive advances achieved in stem cell therapy in recent years, there is little doubt that the world's second annual Stem Cell Awareness Day on 23 September 2009 is deserving of significant recognition.
"Stem cell therapy is the new frontier of medicine and we regularly receive news from around the world of new breakthroughs in the field," says Dr Yvonne Holt of private South African stem cell bank Netcells Cryogenics, a company that collects and stores umbilical cord blood stem cells from newborns. "Stem cells have long been used in the treatment of certain cancers, but now research is showing applications in many other areas of medicine. "However," she cautions, "much of this work is still experimental. However, the progress made in recent years is nevertheless extremely exciting."
She says that examples of such work include recent news from Australia that stem cells have been used to help 'mend' hips, thereby helping patients to avoid hip replacement operations. And, there are human trials taking place to see whether stem cells can help treat damaged nerves in newly injured individuals. Work is also being done with stems cells in the treatment of Crohn's disease, corneal disease, stroke, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, cartilage replacement for arthritis; the list goes on and on.
Important steps have furthermore been made with regard to the development of stem cell legislation in South Africa over the past year. According to Dr Holt, this will be finalised next year. She says that the new legislation represents a "huge breakthrough" for stem cell medicine and research in South Africa.
The Department of Health also played a part in the development of the legislation, they called an expert team to write the policy document on stem cells. Once complete it will form part of Chapter 8 of the National Health Act, which deals with human tissue storage and transplantation.
Dr Holt says that there are more-and-more potential uses for umbilical cord stem cells coming to light. The banking of umbilical cords is therefore a potential investment in the healthy future of the family.
"Umbilical cord blood is an excellent and well proven source of stem cells for bone marrow transplantation, which is an acceptable form of medical treatment across the world for a number of serious diseases," she continues.
The collection and storage service of the highest repute ensures that the unique opportunity of harvesting umbilical cord blood stem cells is not missed. These cryogenically stored cells can be retrieved at any time should the need arise. It is likely that, over the next few years, with advances in medical science, several new and entirely ethical applications of stem cell therapy will become part of routine medical practice.
With massive progress now being made on this new frontier of medicine, and increasing acceptance of its importance into the future, there really is just cause for celebration this Stem Cell Awareness Day.
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www.news8austin.com
10/13/2009
By: Ivanhoe Broadcast News
The American Heart Association estimates 80 million American adults, one in every three, have at least one form of heart disease.
Nearly six million of these adults suffer from heart failure, an irreversible condition that often requires a heart transplant. It can be caused by many factors, including long-term heart disease and multiple heart attacks.
Because blood supply is cut off from muscle cells in the heart during an attack, that tissue can suffer permanent injury or death.
"The fundamental problem with heart attacks and heart failure is that the heart loses functioning muscle cells, and when you lose those functioning muscle cells, the heart goes into failure," cardiologist at the University of Miami, Joshua Hare M.D., said. "Up until now we've had no therapy that can replace those missing cells."
Now, doctors are turning to stem cells to re-grow heart tissue.
"The overall goal of stem cell therapy for the heart is to replace those missing cells and rebuild the heart or restore the heart back to what it was originally," Dr. Hare said.
To treat the heart, doctors inject stem cells either into the bloodstream, the coronary artery or directly into the organ. Until now, most research involving this treatment has been in patients who have just suffered a heart attack, before scar tissue has formed.
Doctors at the University of Miami are testing a new method of stem cell delivery that they hope is beneficial for patients with heart failure.
"We're really at the beginning of a new field of inquiry, asking the question, 'Can we treat patients whose heart attack may have been three months ago, three years ago or even longer?'" an interventional cardiologist at the University of Miami Allan Helman, M.D., said.
The new technique involves a novel, corkscrew-shaped catheter through which surgeons inject bone marrow stem cells directly into the heart.
"The advantage of a screw-in needle is that there is better retention of what's been injected into the muscle," Heldman said.
As with other types of catheters, patients don't have to undergo surgery to receive the treatment. While the patient is lightly sedated, a catheter is threaded through a blood vessel into the aorta, and ultimately into heart muscle. Doctors navigate the heart during surgery using magnetic resonance imagining (MRI).
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Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot News
Body and Mind Staff
10/25/2009
Justin Wolford was born with a rare condition that meant his body wasn't producing a critical enzyme it needed. His life was saved by a stem cell transplant using cord blood donated by a family he will never know.
Since then, the 4-year-old boy's parents, Sean and Michelle Wolford, have been on a mission to make banking of umbilical cord blood a commonplace occurrence in delivery rooms.
"It blows my mind that something so simple that could save so many lives is thrown away every day after a baby is born. My husband and I would love to see that every cord is kept," said Michelle Wolford of Orrstown, who speaks to Shippensburg High School biology students every year about the important role that cord blood can play in saving lives. She hopes that one day when they are parents, they will remember her message and donate their child's cord blood.
"There are no ifs about it; that cord blood saved Justin's life," said Sean Wolford. "Before the surgery, Justin couldn't roll, crawl or sit up on his own. Today, he's all boy, and doctors consider him cured."
Cord blood, which can be collected when the umbilical cord is cut at birth, contains stem cells that can be used to treat cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma, bone marrow disorders, blood disorders such as sickle cell anemia, and metabolic disorders such as Hurler Syndrome, which Justin inherited.
"The words 'stem cell' can be controversial," Sean Wolford said. "We're trying to educate people that you can harvest cord blood with no harm to the baby."
Why save your baby's cord blood?
"You're basically using it as an insurance policy for the future or if you have a child with a known affliction that it could help," said Dr. Holly Thomas, a gynecologist/obstetrician at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
If an immediate family member has a disease that requires a stem cell transplant, there's a higher likelihood that cord blood from a newborn baby in the family will be a match, Thomas said.
Also, if there are medical advances in the future that can repair the body with one's own stem cells, children whose parents saved their cord blood could benefit. Stem cells from cord blood cannot be used to treat genetic diseases in the same person from whom they were collected because the cord blood would have the same mutation.
The donation is kept frozen until needed.
A law passed in Pennsylvania last year requires health care facilities and providers to give pregnant women information about cord blood banking and to permit patients to arrange for the donations prior to delivery.
Local health care providers say they are telling patients about cord blood donation in prenatal classes and at doctor visits.
In Justin's case, there was only one match found in the entire country — at Duke University. In hopes of beefing up the national supply, the Wolfords are contacting their state representatives and senators — and urging others to do the same — to push for legislation that would make saving cord blood routine.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
More than 20,000 Americans have undergone successful umbilical cord blood transplants from donations the last few years.
More than 70 disorders to date have been treated with stem cells from cord blood.
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