Ask any prospective parent about having a baby and they'll tell you all they want is a healthy baby. When that doesn't happen, parents and their little one often face a lifetime of challenges. Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg oversees the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at Duke University Medical Center. She aims to help these families. She's a pioneer in cord blood stem cell therapies and currently leads a three year cord blood study to see if children with cerebral palsy can be helped.
"We tested cord blood in children with cancer and genetic diseases and serendipitously learned that it also can go to the brain and correct problems in the brain. So then we had the idea that maybe cord blood from the child themselves could repair damage in the brain if the damaged occurred early in life. And so we treated about 180 children to check and see if cord blood was safe to give to them and they did very well. And many of the children improved but we couldn't really know if it was because of the cord blood itself,” says Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg.
The result of past stem cell therapy successes under Dr. Kurtzberg’s leadership has led to today's current three year blood cord study on children with cerebral palsy. “So about a year ago we started a study to randomly select children to either receive their own cord blood or a placebo and then to test them with development tests, and motor test, and special MRI's to see how much they changed from baseline to a year later. We're testing a new treatment using the child's own cord blood which was stored when they were born to see if it helps lessen symptoms of cerebral palsy and other kinds of brain injuries that can occur in young children."
Brooke Isbert's daughter is a participant in the study. Born prematurely, her family knew she faced the possibility of future medical problems. “We decided from reading all the research the amazing research that's being done with stem cells how it's been able to somewhat heal things in some children or help lessen symptoms and some other disease we decided to, my husband and I decide to store her cord blood when she was born, " says Brooke Isbert.
Doctors soon discovered Brooke’s daughter had cerebral palsy.
The Isbert's travel from Delaware to Duke once a year for treatment.
“Since it's a blind study we're here once a year for three years so either the first year she received her stem cells or a placebo, we don't know and the second year of course it will be either or so we know eventually by the end of her study, she received her stem cells."
Brooke knows her daugther's neurological damage can't be reversed. She's also aware the therapy may not work and that there are no guarantees. "What my hope is from being part of the study and her receiving her stem cells is that it will lessen her cerebral palsy symptoms. Just maybe a better outlook with her physical abilities as she gets older."
She hopes the treatment improves her daughter's quality of life, but she's also realistic. Dr. Kurtzberg is also realistic, but she continues to celebrate past successes while holding out hope for future ones. “It’s great to see children grow up. I'm old enough now to see children I treated as babies become young adults, but I think we're still challenged by diseases we can't help yet but we wanna make progress on."
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
SPECIAL REPORT: Stem Cell Solution
Great video, so many advances are being made in such little time................MrCordBlood
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