What types of medical therapies use cord blood?
There are two main types of cord blood therapy: stem cell transplants and regenerative medicine. Stem Cell Transplants • Stem cell transplants remove a patient’s immune system and replace it with the immune system from a donor. • Stem cell transplants are used to treat a number of diagnoses: cancers of the blood system like leukemia, blood diseases like aplastic anemia, genetic disorders like sickle cell, and metabolic disorders like Tay-Sachs. • Cord blood has been used as a source for stem cell transplants since 1988, and cord blood transplants are an established medical therapy (ref: Institute of Medicine report) • The odds of a person needing a stem cell transplant are low in childhood, only 1 in 1666 up to age 20, but rise rapidly with age and become 1 in 217 by age 70 (ref: Nietfeld etal. BBMT 2008;14:316-322). • About 70% of the patients who need a stem cell transplant do not have a donor in their family, and must search a national database maintained by a federally-funded organ
