Posted on 02/12/2008 4:32:20 PM PST by wagglebee
BRISTOL, UK, February 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A two year old girl from Suffolk has been cured of a rare form of cancer using genetically matched adult stem cells from a Japanese donor. Last week, news reports around the world revealed Sorrel Mason, a toddler from Great Wratting in Suffolk suffering from acute myeloid leukaemia, received a transplant of donated cells from a frozen umbilical cord from Tokyo.
Sorrel's mother, Samantha Mason, told media, "Sorrel would be dead now if she had been left untreated." The little girl was given a 30 per cent chance of survival when she was diagnosed. She has fully recovered since her treatment a year ago.
Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a cancer of the white blood cells in which the abnormal cells proliferate and accumulate in the bone marrow and interfere with the production of normal blood cells. Symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, easy bruising and bleeding, and increased risk of infection. AML progresses rapidly and is typically fatal within weeks or months if left untreated.
Treatment normally involves chemotherapy, but haematopoietic stem cell transplant, involving cells taken from bone marrow or blood, is increasingly being used. Most frequently, haematopoietic stem cell transplants take the cells from the patient's own blood or bone marrow or those from a close relative. The cells used must be a close enough match to avoid immune system rejection.
Sorrel's treatment was done at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, which is a leading centre in the treatment of childhood leukaemia. Dr Jackie Cornish, director of the bone marrow transplant unit at the Bristol hospital, said their facility is among the best in Europe in stem cell transplant treatments and has been a leader in extending the pool of donors for stem cells.
"There is a choice," she said to the Evening Post. "We can have a brother or sister donor, a matched or acceptably mismatched unrelated donor, we can go to the umbilical cord blood panel and test for a match from there, or we can use a mismatched family relation, commonly a mother or father."
"We were the first to develop unrelated donor transplant in such volume, and we have all of the spectrum of donors to choose from."
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Don’t tell John McCain. He will just claim you are lying if you tell him that you can cure cancer without killing fetuses.
He never had any need for those crazy christian types anyways so the fact that it pisses them off just makes it that much sweeter (plus, the media so enjoys him stomping on the social conservative types)
Obviously no money in that, best keep it quiet.
“Every newborn could have their own umbilical cord blood frozen and stored for future use at very little relative cost.”
I think it costs $3000-$5000 and you can do it today.
They’d charge a fortune for storage and maintenance, that’s all.
And the shipping and handling should it ever be required....
Add tax to subtotal....
Correct, usually they just throw away the cord and placenta... its an untapped resource!
Umbilical cord blood ought to be harvested instead of wasted. The potential for good is huge.
We did it for our son. If I remember correctly it was about $2000 that they financed over 5-6 payments and then it is about $95 a year for storage.
I hope I never need to use it. It does make sense to me to have it just in case.
great thinking — you’re thoughtful parents and citizens.
.
This news won’t help the Brainless Human Clone Organ Supply movement.
Here’s an excuse to have more kids. Have a baby, possibly save older siblings and parents and grandparents and strangers ...
an appeal to selfish altruism.
ping
This is the only type of stem cell research I support as no babies are killed. When my son was born 6 years ago, we banked his cord and it only cost $50 a year, because it was a new procedure.
The same company CryoCell sent me a post card last week about a new procedure in which they are patenting and starting to store menstral lining, as they say its a rich source of stem cells that self renew. This sounded weird to me, but I just filed it away to see what came of the research.
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