Cord Blood Registry Celebrates Families Helping to Advance Research

Despite rapid advances using a child’s own cord blood stem cells in regenerative therapies to repair damaged tissue due to injury or disease, most pregnant women today don’t learn about the ability to save their newborn’s cord blood. According to research published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, 3 out of every 4 pregnant women consider themselves only “minimally informed.”

July has been designated as “Cord Blood Awareness Month” by a society of the American Hospital Association with the goal of raising awareness about the medical value of newborn stem cells from umbilical cord blood, which have been used for more than 20 years to treat nearly 80 diseases. In addition, research studies are underway evaluating the use of a child’s own cord blood to help treat conditions that have no cure today, like cerebral palsy.

One child’s experience exemplifies the growing importance of educating all expectant parents. An in-utero stroke left Chloe Levine with cerebral palsy, causing paralysis on the right side of her body. At a year old, Chloe’s right hand remained tightly closed in a fist, which she couldn’t lift above her head. Instead of crawling, Chloe dragged her right leg behind her.

Because Chloe’s parents had stored her cord blood stem cells with Cord Blood Registry (CBR) at birth, Chloe was able to undergo a potentially life-changing experimental treatment: a re-infusion of her own cord blood. Within weeks after Chloe was infused, “things started happening that she could never do before,” said her mother, Jenny Levine. “Her progress has been dramatic.”

Today, one year post-infusion, the little girl who was nearly paralyzed on her right side can lift both arms to catch a ball. She talks up a storm. And she can run – fast. Two months post-infusion, Chloe’s physical therapist, Dottie Waldo, was shocked at the recovery of movement in Chloe’s hands and arms, saying “I’ve never seen anything turn around this fast.” In fact, Chloe Levine has progressed so much that she no longer needs physical or speech therapy.

“Regenerative therapies using cord blood stem cells are currently being researched for conditions including traumatic brain injury, cerebral palsy, stroke, type 1 diabetes, heart defects and hearing loss,” said Heather Brown, vice president of scientific and medical affairs for CBR, the global leader in the collection and preservation of newborn stem cells from umbilical cord blood. “Research indicates these cells have demonstrated the ability to go to damaged sites in the body and help induce healing. And the re-infusion of one’s own stem cells back into the body carries no risk of tumor formation or immune response.”

Chloe Levine will begin preschool in the fall. It’s yet another milestone, as Chloe no longer qualifies for special needs services at school. That simple fact is something her mom, Jenny Levine, calls “a joy beyond words.”

“Chloe’s story demonstrates that cord blood education isn’t just a good idea – it’s good health policy,” said David Zitlow, senior vice president, public affairs for CBR. “The Institute of Medicine recommends that all pregnant women should be educated about cord blood stem cells early enough in pregnancy that they can make an informed decision about the options to preserve these valuable cells.”

Recently, U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Ca) introduced HR 2107, “The Cord Blood Education and Awareness Act of 2009,” which supports the Institute of Medicine guidance to better educate expectant parents about their options for donating or banking their child’s cord blood. HR 2107 also seeks to bring healthcare professionals up-to-date on the value of cord blood banking and makes grants available to reach crucial segments of the population, such as minority communities and families with a genetic history of treatable diseases.

Cord Blood Awareness Month

July has been designated as “Cord Blood Awareness Month” by the American Hospital Association’s Society for Healthcare Strategy & Market Development (SHSMD) with the goal of raising awareness about newborn stem cells from umbilical cord blood, which have been used for more than 20 years to treat nearly 80 diseases. Today, medical researchers are using cord blood stem cells to evaluate new treatments for diabetes, brain damage, spinal cord injuries, hearing loss and other regenerative therapies. By providing education about the medical value of cord blood stem cells and the available banking options, Cord Blood Awareness Month strives to empower expectant parents to make informed choices regarding their family’s future health.

Source: Cord Blood Registry


Heart Attack Patient Receives His Own Heart Stem Cells as Part of Medical Study to Determine Safety of New Technique to Repair Injured Heart Muscle

Doctors at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute announced the completion of the first procedure in which a patient’s own heart tissue was used to grow specialized heart stem cells that were then injected back into the patient’s heart in an effort to repair and re-grow healthy muscle in a heart that had been injured by a heart attack.

The minimally-invasive procedure was completed on the first patient on Friday, June 26.

The procedure is part of a Phase I investigative study approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and supported by the Specialized Centers for Cell-based Therapies at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. It is the first to use adult cells from a patient’s own heart to attempt to heal injured heart muscle.

“This procedure signals a new and exciting era in the understanding and treatment of heart disease,” said Eduardo Marban, MD PhD, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, who developed the technique and is leading the clinical trial. “Five years ago, we didn’t even know the heart had its own distinct type of stem cells. Now we are exploring how to harness such stem cells to help patients heal their own damaged hearts.”

The study is directed by the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, with the collaboration of the Johns Hopkins University, where Dr. Marban worked prior to joining Cedars-Sinai in 2007. The 24 patients participating in the study have hearts that were damaged and scarred by heart attacks. Once enrolled in the study, patients go through a three-step procedure.

After undergoing extensive imaging so doctors can pinpoint the exact location and severity of the scars wrought by the heart attack, the patient undergoes a minimally-invasive biopsy, with local anesthesia. Using a catheter inserted through a vein in the patient’s neck, doctors remove a small piece of heart tissue, about half the size of a raisin.

The heart tissue is then taken to a specialized lab at Cedars-Sinai, where heart stem cells are cultured using methods invented by Marban and his team. It takes about four weeks for the cells to multiply to numbers sufficient for therapeutic use, approximately 10 to 25 million.

In the third and final step, the now-multiplied stem cells are re-introduced into the patient’s coronary arteries during a second catheter procedure.

All patients in the study had to have experienced heart attacks within four weeks prior to enrolling in the research project. Four patients will receive 12.5 million stem cells and two patients will serve as controls. Later this summer, it is anticipated that 12 more patients will undergo procedures to receive 25 million stem cells, while six additional patients will be monitored as controls.

The first patient, Kenneth Milles, a 39-year-old controller for a small construction company in the San Fernando Valley, experienced a heart attack on May 10 due to a 99 percent blockage in the left anterior descending artery, a major artery of the heart. Milles’ heart attack left 21 percent of his heart muscle infarcted, or scarred. He underwent his biopsy May 24 and received his infusion of stem cells on June 29.

The patients will be monitored for six months. Complete results are scheduled to be available in late-2010.

Marban, who holds the Mark Siegel Family Foundation Chair at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and directs Cedars-Sinai’s Board of Governors Heart Stem Cell Center, also said the cardiac stem cell procedure is a logical step forward from recent studies in which cardiac patients have been treated with stem cells derived from bone marrow. Studies over the past eight years have shown that more than 500 cardiac patients have experienced modest improvement when treated with bone marrow stem cells.

However, bone marrow stem cells are not predestined to regenerate heart muscle. When cardiac stem cells were discovered five years ago by various teams worldwide, Marban began developing a method for isolating heart stem cells from minimally-invasive biopsies and then multiplying the cells. Unlike bone marrow cells, heart stem cells are naturally programmed to regrow heart tissue, so they could prove more effective in healing the injury caused by heart attacks.

“If successful, we hope the procedure could be widely available in a few years and could be more broadly applied to cardiac patients,” Marban said. For example, if patients are able to re-grow damaged heart muscle via stem cell therapy, there could be lesser demand for expensive and risky treatments such as heart transplants.

The process to grow the cardiac-derived stem cells involved in the study was developed by Marban when he was on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University. The university has filed for a patent on that intellectual property, and has licensed it to a company in which Dr. Marban has a financial interest. No funds from that company were used to support the clinical study. All funding was derived from the National Institutes of Health, the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Source: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center


Bladder cancer no longer a death sentence

  • Author: Health Informer
  • Filed under: Health News
  • Date: Jul 1,2009

At 51, Charles Daniels had a lot to live for. A thriving construction business, a precious 11 year old daughter and a happy long-term relationship. When he was diagnosed with bladder cancer, he was determined to beat the odds. According to TMD, a medical tourism corporation, Daniels case is typical – he tried conventional medicine until they had nothing left to offer but a poor prognosis, and then went out of the country for alternative cancer treatment and is cancer free today.

Just before Christmas 2007, Daniels urinated blood. He went right to his primary care doctor, who did an ultrasound and X-rays, which were inconclusive. Suspecting an infection, his doctor gave him antibiotics. Within 24 hours, the blood was no longer visible. But a follow up visit showed microscopic blood in his urine, and he was sent to a urologist. A cytoscopy exam (where a small camera is inserted into the bladder) and intra-venous pyelogram (an X-ray with contrast that provides pictures of the entire urinary system) found bladder cancer. “I was shocked,” Daniels said. “I was in perfect health, I felt good, and I thought I just had an infection.”

This year, almost 71,000 Americans will be diagnosed with bladder cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, the survival rate for stage III bladder cancer is 50%; stage IV is rarely survived. Symptoms include blood in the urine and frequent, painful or urgent urination.

Risk factors are smoking, chemical exposure to dyes, rubber and pesticides, chronic infections and parasites. Women undergoing chemotherapy and radiation for cervical cancer also have an increased risk of developing bladder cancer.

Daniels’ oncologist recommended surgery to remove the tumor. While his doctor was cautiously optimistic, further testing confirmed the invasive tumor had penetrated the muscle wall. “My doctor wanted to remove my bladder, prostate and surrounding lymph nodes, and create a new bladder from my intestines. He said with this surgery I had a 90% survival rate. I wanted to live, and 90% sounded like a good number.”

Daniels expected to wake up after surgery and be cancer free. But his surgeon found that the tumor had grown outside the bladder wall and surrounding lymph nodes tested positive. His survival rate dropped from 90% to 40%. Despite an aggressive chemotherapy program, his next CAT scan revealed three new tumors in his liver. He now was stage IV. At this point, mainstream medicine offered no hope of cure, and his life expectancy dropped to around nine months. The chemotherapy left him feeling exhausted and sick, and he suffered weight and hair loss. Permanent side effects included hearing loss, tingling in his extremities and ‘chemo brain’.

Next, Daniels underwent Radio Frequency Ablation (RAF), a guided imagery surgery where a needle like probe transmits microwaves into tumors causing the destruction of tumor cells. The RAF destroyed the tumors, but he was told they would come back – there is no mainstream cure for his cancer.

Daniels then began researching alternative treatments. He sent emails with his medical history to clinics throughout the United States and Mexico. He interviewed doctors and talked to patients. When he asked about success rates, the answers he received ranged from “we’ll make you more comfortable” to “complete remission”.

Finally, he learned about a fairly new cancer treatment called SonoPhoto Dynamic Therapy (SPDT). This non-invasive treatment uses a non-toxic sensitizing agent along with sound and light to destroy cancer cells. Dr. Antonio Jimenez, medical director of the Hope4Cancer Institute south of San Diego, California in Baja, Mexico, has successfully treated bladder and other cancers with this program. Although this is a natural treatment without side effects, SPDT is considered a mainstream cancer treatment in 25 European countries. SPDT has proven effective against ovarian, prostate, colon, lung, pancreatic, liver and breast cancers, among others. It has not yet been approved in the United States.

Daniels decided to travel to Mexico for two weeks of SPDT treatment followed by a two month home program. “My doctors were not opposed to this,” Daniels says. “They had nothing left to offer me.”

“From the minute I walked into this clinic I had hope.” Daniels says the doctors were upbeat and the staff was exceptionally caring. “The treatment was painless and there were no side effects. When I finished the program, my CAT scans were absolutely clear and my blood work was normal. I continue to have testing done every few months, and I am still completely cancer free. I stay on a maintenance program. I am going to watch my daughter grow up. I married my long time sweetheart. I only wish I would have found this treatment sooner.”

Source: TMD Limited Corporation


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