Stem Cell Treatment

Stem Cell Treatment

For over 30 years, doctors have been using umbilical cord stem cells to treat cancer patients suffering from leukemia and lymphoma. These stem cell treatments, produced from the patient’s cord blood, help patients recover faster from radiation and chemotherapy treatments, which destroy cells, by replacing those diseased and dead cells with healthy new ones.

Today, stem cell treatments, derived from cord blood stem cells, bone marrow stem cells, and peripheral blood stem cells, are being used by doctors to combat not just specific types of cancer, such as leukemia and lymphoma, but a wide variety of diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and Alzheimer’s disease, to name just a handful.

That’s because unlike other cells produced by the human body, stem cells have amazing regenerative properties. And umbilical cord blood stem cells in particular have the unique ability to develop into different many types of cells, such as brain, muscle, and heart cells (whereas bone marrow stem cells can only regenerate into white and red blood cells). In addition, stem cells taken from a patient’s umbilical cord blood (at birth) are a perfect genetic match, dramatically decreasing the chance of rejection or side effects in the case of a blood or stem cell transplant, which make them a preferred choice for creating stem cell treatments.

For additional information on cord blood and stem cells, visit the following sites (by clicking on the link):
stemcells.nih.gov
www.parentsguidecordblood.org