In the United States, a bill has been filed in Congress seeking to further improve the medical practice of cord blood transplants. The bill is called the Cord Blood Stem Act of 2005 (HR 596) and the author of this bill is New Jersey Representative Honorable Chris Smith, the proposed legislative bill seeks to amend the Public Health Service Act and to establish a National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Network to prepare, store, and distribute human umbilical cord blood stem cells for the treatment of patients and to support peer-reviewed research using such cells.
It is strongly supported by fellow congressmen, scientists and cord blood transplant recipients. The bill's author, Rep. Smith, said that the proposed law seeks to make available the miracle of stem cells to patients who have otherwise no alternative cure to recover from lethal diseases.
The proposed bill, strongly endorsed by members of the American Congress, intends to create a National Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank Network which would produce an inventory of 150,000 ready-to-use, top quality cord blood units available to patients, especially, marginalized ones, who are in dire need of blood cord transplants.
The large inventory would assure that even with America's diverse ethnic diversity, majority of the American patients are assured to receive a well-matched cord blood sample.
In America alone, an estimated of 20,000 adults and children don't have a matched relative or donor for treatment of lethal diseases that can only be cured with a marrow transplant. Thousands more cannot be transplanted because they cannot find suitable donors, matching same type people who are ready to donate among the several volunteer donors in the bone marrow registries. These are the patients who are suffering from diseases like leukemia, lymphoma, other metabolic diseases or genetic diseases of the immune and blood system.
Cord blood is a proven source of stem cells, which unlike bone marrow, can be safely collected from mothers and babies and when properly stored and frozen, can be usable for many years. One distinct advantage of cord blood transplantation over bone marrow transplantation is that it doesn't need to exactly match a certain tissue type. Patients with uncommon tissue types like in the case of many ethnic minority individuals can find matches for their types.
But is likewise known that recipients of better-matched grafts recover faster and better and this is one of the main purposes of Rep. Smith's bill - to create a larger cord blood inventory that would mean better matches and better transplant survival for the patient.
With the impending approval of this bill, long suffering patients waiting for bone marrow transplants now have another, a much better option which is cord blood transplant. The urgent demand for cord blood caused by an upsurge in cord blood transplants for various diseases has spawned a number of cord blood banks. Cord blood registry on the other hand has provided the ground rules needed for the strict regulation, observation and monitoring of various private and public blood cord banks.
A noted increase in the number of parents who registered to have their child's cord blood collected and catalogued either though public or non-profit private cord banks or through private, profit-oriented blood cord banks has been noted especially in Europe and in USA. Blood cord registry and enrollment process is a simple procedure. Payment schemes are usually staggered from 6 months to a year in easy, flexible terms- these are done to encourage a lot of parents to register.
Transplanting blood stem rich in blood-producing cells into the patient's bone marrow can treat leukemia. There are three sources of stem cells that are being used for transplants; these are bone marrow, the circulating blood, and umbilical cord blood.
In the process of transplanting blood stem cells, the leukemia patient is initially given a treatment of chemotherapy to wipe out the patient's leukemia cells and his immune system. After which blood stem cells are transplanted into the patient's blood to restore the patient's immune system and have healthy blood cell production.
Two types of blood stem cell transplants that are used to treat patients with Leukemia are:
1) Autologous blood stem cell transplants which use the patient's own blood stem cells.
2) Allogeneic blood stem cell transplants, which use the blood stem cells of a donor.
Blood cord transplant is the alternative choice; the safer choice compared vis-a-vis bone marrow transplant. It is, an answer to a new life, a better tomorrow for patients longing for a healthier future.
For more information on cord blood banking, please visit Blood Cord Bank.
0 comments
Post a Comment