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Τρίτη 5 Απριλίου 2011

Testing power of cord blood

Australian children with cerebral palsy will be offered a pioneering treatment using their own umbilical-cord blood to provide some of the world's first evidence about its effectiveness at repairing damaged brain tissue.
Researchers are seeking ethics approval for a trial at Melbourne's Monash Medical Centre that would offer the treatment to 20 children to determine whether it can cure or relieve the symptoms of cerebral palsy.
Professor Joanne Kurtzberg, of North Carolina's Duke University, has reinfused the cord blood of about 250 children with cerebral palsy over the past five years - but has published no scientific data on its effectiveness. While Professor Kurtzberg has established that the treatment is safe and feasible, Australian researchers want to assess the impact on the brains of children with cerebral palsy.

Brisbane parents Stephen and Gabrielle Archer travelled to the US at a cost of $40,000 to have the treatment for their son Zac, 5, who was left with cerebral palsy and epilepsy after suffering a stroke at four months.
Since having his cord blood reinfused four months ago, the Archers say movement on Zac's right side is improving and he is now having about 20 partial (or focal) seizures a day, compared with 100 previously.
The blood that remains in a baby's umbilical cord and placenta after birth is rich in stem cells, which are able to develop into other cells in the body. Southern Health's director of obstetrics, Professor Euan Wallace, said animal studies suggested that the stem cells in cord blood could repair or assist in the repair of brain injuries.
One theory is that stem cells in cord blood go to the damaged area and recruit cells within the brain to repair it, but the exact mechanism is unknown.
''If it doesn't work, then Australian families shouldn't be spending $40,000 going to the US. If it does work, then we need to know about it because, for the first time, we would have a treatment that actually reverses cerebral palsy. That would be astonishing,'' Professor Wallace said.
He said all the children in the trial - expected to start this year - would be offered the treatment. ''It's a slightly unusual trial design - all of the children will be offered the blood and a full neurological assessment, and then randomised to have the cord blood either straight away or in three months before being reassessed,'' Professor Wallace said.
''That way you are not withholding treatment from any child, but you have a small core of children where you can see whether the cells are working or not.''
Cord blood is used to treat blood disorders including leukaemia in donor recipients - and a public bank in Australia collects it for that purpose. Cord blood also shows promise in the emerging field of regenerative medicine to repair damaged or diseased tissues.
Children in the trial may have been able to reclaim their cord blood from the public bank, or a private bank that retains it for their exclusive use.
The medical director of private cord blood bank Cell Care, Associate Professor Mark Kirkland, said the trial would be one of the first to assess the efficacy of cord blood in human disease.
''For years researchers have been writing in the scientific literature about the therapeutic potential of cord blood … and people have started collecting it on that basis,'' he said.
''This is the first of what I think will be a large number of trials looking at applying in the real world what people have been observing in the laboratory for many years, which is that cord blood is a unique source of cells for a whole range of therapies.''
Cord blood stem cells have also been proposed as a treatment for conditions including spinal cord injury, diabetes, liver and heart disease.

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/

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