Privately banked cord blood and placenta-derived stem cells have great potential to expand a family’s treatment options for a variety of serious and often life-threatening diseases. Whether you’ve taken the important step of banking your newborn’s stem cells or are just beginning to research the possibilities, you may be wondering what happens if you really need to use the banked stem cells.

Understanding the transplant process can help you make informed choices should your child (or perhaps another family member) ever need to use the stem cell unit for treatment. To help you learn more, here’s what every parent ought to know about cord blood transplants:

What is a stem cell transplant?

A stem cell transplant is a therapeutic procedure used to treat patients whose stem cells are abnormal, weakened, or destroyed by disease or treatment. Healthy stem cells infused into the body can replenish themselves and transform into other cell types, including red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets, thus enabling them to replace the unhealthy cells. For therapy to be successful, the healthy stem cells must be transplanted and undergo engraftment and differentiation.

Sources of healthy stem cells include umbilical cord blood and the placenta, bone marrow, or peripheral (circulating) blood. A stem cell transplant may use stem cells taken from the patient, a family member or an unrelated donor.

How can a stem cell transplant help my child or other loved ones?

Stem cell transplants have been used to treat serious diseases in children and adults including various cancers such as leukemia, certain lymphomas, and many other diseases. To date, there are more than 80 diseases for which cord blood stem cell transplants have been used to treat patients. (1)

In addition, research is currently underway to find new medical uses for stem cells, including treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, diabetes, Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), cardiac repair and spinal cord injuries. In time, through the use of stem cells, beneficial treatments for one or more of these conditions could become a reality.

Why use privately banked stem cells for transplantation, instead of a publicly donated cord blood unit or bone marrow?

Private cord blood banking (also known as family banking) markedly improves the likelihood that a suitable transplant will be immediately available. More than 30% of patients requiring transplant therapy are unable to find a suitable match.(2) The best match is a perfect 6/6 or 5/6 HLA match for the recipient, meaning he or she will have the same six (or five) antigens as the patient. Without a privately banked unit, a search could take months and still be unsuccessful. The benefit of collecting and storing stem cells at birth is that, should the child develop any of certain rare, often fatal diseases, the child’s stem cells will be readily available for transplantation and that may help in restoring the patient’s health. The child’s stem cells will always be a perfect 6/6 match for that child.

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