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In the year of 1988, it has been proved that blood taken from the umbilical cord of a baby can be used successfully for processing into stem cells needed for transplantation. First transplantation was done to a boy of 5-year-old Patient suffering from Fanconi anemia, a bone marrow failure syndrome was cured by hematopoietic stem cell transplant.
Stem cells have their own unique qualities and storing of these stem cells will provide the best opportunity so that you can use those stem cells for the treatment of your family member. We don’t know the future and we can’t predict which diseases might affect our family. In the treatment of approximately 80 different medical conditions, stem cells are currently used as a routine clinical method of treatment. Additional indications for the application of stem cells will certainly be revealed in the future. Cord blood collected immediately after birth contains stem cells that can be used to treat the child and her siblings themselves. Once in a lifetime, the stem cells can be collected and used in the future.
In the bone marrow, stem cells are present and can be collected throughout life. But cord blood stem cells are biologically younger and more flexible than bone marrow cells, and they are more beneficial than stem cells in the bone marrow. To succeed in transplanting stem cells, they must be a match for the receiver. In some public databases, matched stem cells can be found, but the chance of finding a match is low and complications may arise with unrelated blood transfusions. Genetically-related stem cells more often result in a successful transplant from a blood-related family member.
Stem cell of the baby will always remain a perfect match for the baby itself but not for genetic conditions that have been inherited. Siblings get a 25% chance to be a perfect match and a 50% chance to be a partial match. Overall, this gives a 75% chance for siblings to be a possible match. Parents have a 100 percent chance of being a partial match since each parent provides markers used in matching.
If you store in a private bank, the stem cells of your child can be used by any member of your family. Siblings are often a perfect match, but it is also possible to treat other family members, such as cousins, aunts, and uncles. If your kids have siblings, they can use each other’s stem cells for treatment, and having access to more cells means that in the future you will have more treatment options. Finally, researchers believe that the stem cells can be stored for an indefinite time and remains perfect until the time of their use for transplantation.