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Babies Provide Lifelines; Umbilical Cord Stem Cells Aid in Transplants for Leukemia Patients, Others
PATRICIA ANSTETT
Knight Ridder
Charlotte Observer (NC)
07 November 2005
Peter Bernard Storm started life as a big contributor. Someday, he may save a life.
One minute after his birth this year at Detroit's St. John Hospital & Medical Center, Dr. Carl Buccellato collected the blood from Peter's umbilical cord for a public cord blood registry at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit.
"It would be great if this could help someone else," said Kathy Storm, 35, as she held her healthy 9-pound boy.
Most hospitals discard cord blood after a baby's birth, despite the fact that the blood contains stem cells that can be used in transplants for as many as 80 serious medical problems. Those include the most prevalent types of leukemia, metabolic disorders like Tay-Sachs disease, blood-related conditions such as sickle cell anemia and severe anemia problems.
"People literally are dying on the transplant list who could be cured with this," said Dr. Brian Mason, the St. John obstetrician/gynecologist who approached the Storm family 10 minutes before the birth to ask them to contribute Peter's cord blood.
Now, major changes are under way that will make cord blood donations to public banks for potential transplant use much more likely.
Pending national legislation, the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005, would create a unified national registry and provide $10 million for collection for public cord blood banking, making it much easier for expectant parents to allow their newborns to be donors like Peter Storm. The legislation awaits action by the full Senate. (For updates, visit <http://www.cordcoalition.org>www.cordcoalition.org , the Web site for the Coalition for Responsible Cord Blood Donation, a group of scientists, educators, parents and others backing the legislation.)
Each year, 9,000 Americans -- one-third of them children -- die waiting for a transplant because there are no matches in national registries, according to the National Bone Marrow Program's Cord Blood Bank Network.
Families, of course, can store the cord blood of their newborns through private banks for their own use, but the option is costly and considered to have a slim chance it might be used someday, unless the family carries a genetic disease.
Once donated to a public bank, cord blood can be tapped for transplant by anyone in the world, as long as blood types match. Families contributing to public registries can't be promised their baby's blood will be reserved for them. But if no one claims the blood, families are eligible to receive it.
A fight against cancer
That's what happened to Allison Cisco, 12, of St. Clair Shores, Mich.
Two weeks after her second birthday, in July 1995, Allison developed leukemia.
At the time, her mother, Sherry Cisco, a hairdresser, was seven months pregnant. She and her husband, Dan, a truck driver for Daimler Chrysler, chose to donate the cord blood of their son, Kevin, when he was born that September.
They heard about cord blood donation from Dr. Thomas Hartzell, another St. John obstetrician, who had read about it in a medical journal. Stem cells, the body's early repair tools, are extracted from the blood, tested for diseases and listed by its antigen. Then it is frozen and stored in a cord blood registry.
At first, Allison didn't need the cord blood. Her cancer went into remission after 2 1/2 years of radiation and chemotherapy at Karmanos' bone marrow and stem cell transplant unit.
But in March 1999, Allison's cancer recurred. Her only choice was a stem cell or bone marrow transplant.
Luckily for her, no one had claimed her brother's cord blood in the four years it was frozen and stored. He also was a perfect match and though he'd been small at birth, just 6 pounds, the blood was enough for a transplant. It worked. Month after month, Allison's health improved. She has been free of cancer since. P
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