Are cord blood stem cells different than other types of stem cells?

Yes. Umbilical cord blood stem cells are the "youngest," safely available stem cells and they are the product of another miracle - a live birth. Freezing these cells essentially stops the clock and prevents aging and damage that may occur to the cells later in life. Another source of stem cells, embryonic stem cells, has been at the heart of heated debate.

Currently, embryonic stem cells are not being used to treat humans. A third category of stem cells is adult stem cells, such as those found in bone marrow. Adult stem cells serve very specialized roles in children and adults and are not as proliferative as those found in cord blood.

What are stem cells and how are they used?

Stem cells are the body's "master" cells because they create all other tissues, organs, and systems in the body. The stem cells found in cord blood are the building blocks of your blood and immune system and most readily replicate into:

Red Blood Cells - which carry oxygen to all the cells in the body,

White Blood Cells - which fight infection, and

Platelets - which aid in clotting in the event of injury.

There are three sources where stem cells are commonly found, they are:

Bone Marrow,
Peripheral Blood (the blood that circulates through your body), and
Umbilical Cord Blood.

The ability of cord blood stem cells to differentiate, or change into other types of cells in the body is a new discovery that holds significant promise for improving the treatment of some of the most common diseases such as heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer's.

Currently, stem cells are primarily used in transplant medicine to regenerate a patient's blood and immune system after they have been treated with chemotherapy and/or radiation to destroy cancer cells.

At the same time the chemotherapy and radiation destroys the cancer cells in a patient, they also destroy stem cells. Therefore, an infusion of stem cells or a stem cell transplant is performed after the chemotherapy and/or radiation treatment. The stem cells then migrate to the patient's bone marrow where they multiply and regenerate all of the cells to create a new blood and immune system for the patient.

The promise of using stem cells for medical treatments has been the focus of research projects that are showing encouraging results.

Cord blood stem cells have been "triggered" to differentiate into neural cells, which could lead to treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

They have also proven their ability to turn into blood vessel cells, which could some day benefit treatments for heart disease, allowing patients to essentially "grow their own bypass."

What is Cord Blood?

After a baby is born and the umbilical cord is cut, some blood remains in the blood vessels of the placenta and the portion of the umbilical cord that remains attached to it. After birth, the baby no longer needs this extra blood. This blood is called placental blood or umbilical cord blood: "cord blood" for short.

Cord blood contains all the normal elements of blood - red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma. But it is also rich in hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells, similar to those found in bone marrow. This is why cord blood can be used for transplantation instead of bone marrow.

Cord blood is being used increasingly on an experimental basis as a source of stem cells, as an alternative to bone marrow. Most cord blood transplants have been done to treat diseases of the blood and immune system. It has also been used to restore the functional deficiencies of several genetic metabolic diseases. To date, more than 70 different diseases have been treated with cord blood transplants.

Scientists are investigating the possibility that stem cells in cord blood may be able to replace cells of other tissues such as nerve or heart cells. Whether cord blood can be used to treat other kinds of diseases will be learned from this research.

Source: http://www.nationalcordbloodprogram.org/qa/

Cord Blood. Concept

Umbilical cord blood is human blood from the placenta and umbilical cord that is rich in hematopoietic stem cells. Cord blood is collected after the umbilical cord has been detached from the newborn, and utilized as a source of stem cells for transplantation.

Cord blood is stored by both public and private cord blood banks. Public cord blood banks store cord blood for the benefit of the general public, and most U.S. banks coordinate matching cord blood to patients through the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP). Private cord blood banks are for-profit organizations that store cord blood for the exclusive use of the donor or donor's relatives.

Public cord blood banking is strongly supported by the medical community. However, private cord blood banking is generally not recommended unless there is a family history of specific genetic diseases. Private banking is unlawful in France and Italy, and opposed by the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies. See cord blood bank.


Properties
Cord blood stem cells are more proliferative and have a higher chance of matching family members than stem cells from bone marrow. Fathers have a 25% chance of matching their child's cord blood stem cells. Siblings have a 25% chance of being a perfect cord blood match.


Collection, storage and costs
Main article: cord blood bank
There are 2 main methods in cord blood collection from the umbilical vein; before the placenta is delivered (in utero) or after (ex utero.)

With ex utero collection method, the cord blood is collected after the placenta is delivered and the umbilical cord is clamped off from the newborn. The placenta is placed in a sterile supporting structure with the umbilical cord hanging through the support. The cord blood is collected by gravity drainage yielding between 40-150 mL.

A similar collection method is done for in utero except that the cord blood is collected after the baby has been delivered but before the delivery of the placenta.

After collection the cord blood units must be immediately shipped to a cord blood bank facility. At public cord blood banks, this blood is then analyzed for infectious agents and the tissue-type is determined. Cord blood is processed and depleted of red blood cells before being stored in liquid nitrogen for later use.

New parents have the option of storing their newborn's cord blood at a private cord blood bank or donating it to a public cord blood bank. The cost of private cord blood banking is approximately $2000 for collection and approximately $125 per year for storage as of 2006. The donation of cord blood may not be available in all areas, however the opportunity to donate is becoming more available. Several local cord blood banks across the United States are now accepting donations from within their own states. The cord blood bank will not charge the donor for the donation, but the OB/GYN may still charge a collection fee of $100-$250, which is usually not covered by insurance. However, many OB/GYNs choose to donate their time.

"According to research in the Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology (1997, 19:3, 183-187), the odds that a child will need to use his or her own stem cells by age twenty-one for current treatments are about 1:2,700, and the odds that a family member would need to use those cells are about 1:1,400." [1]

In 2005, University of Toronto researcher Peter Zandstra developed a method to increase the yield of cord blood stem cells to enable their use in treating adults as well as children.[2]

Usage
When cryopreserved cord blood is needed, it is thawed, washed of the cryoprotectant, and injected through a vein of the patient. This kind of treatment, where the stem cells are collected from another donor, is called allogeneic treatment. When the cells are collected from the same patient on whom they will be used, it is called autologous and when collected from identical individuals, it is referred to as syngeneic. Xenogeneic transfer of cells (between different species) is very underdeveloped and is said to have little research potential.[citation needed]


Diseases treated with cord blood
Beginning in the late 1980s, cord blood stem cells have been used to treat a number of blood and immune-system related genetic diseases, cancers, and disorders. Because of medical issues around using one's own cells, in nearly every instance the treatments are done using cells from another donor, with the vast majority being unrelated donors.

The principal diseases and disorders currently treated are listed at the National Donor Marrow Program website.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cord_blood