KOLD News 13Cord blood stem cells show promise treating cerebral palsy

Cord blood stem cells show promise treating cerebral palsy

By Barbara Grijalva - email

Umbilical cord blood has proven to save lives.

Now scientists might be on the verge of using it to change the lives of children with cerebral palsy.

Cord blood stored in huge tanks at the world's largest cord blood bank, which is here in Tucson, has been used to treat nearly 80 diseases, including cancer.

Now scientists will see if the miracle cells can be used to treat children with cerebral palsy.

The Medical College of Georgia will use cord blood stem cells, the building blocks of the body, to treat 40 children who have cerebral palsy, a type of brain injury.

The stem cells come from each child's own cord blood stored here in Tucson when they were born.

This is the first Food and Drug Administration-approved clinical trial.

Several dozen children were treated before this.

"If you talk to some of the parents whose children have been infused with their own stem cells, they talk about it as a life-changing experience," says Cord Blood Registry Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Dave Zitlow.

He says no one really knows how the stem cells work, but when they are infused into a child through an IV, the cells know exactly what to do.

"The evidence to date suggests these cells are smart. They know how to go to the site of injury even in the brain and when they get there have a role to play, potentially, in the healing process," Zitlow says.

Little Chloe Levine had a stroke before she was born, and eventually was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.

She had paralysis on the right side of her body.

The doctor told her parents she would never walk like everyone else.

But six months after doctors gave her her own cord blood stem cells, her therapist was shocked by Chloe's recovery.

"Today when you meet Chloe, you would be hard pressed to see that she has any physical barrier at all. She runs. She catches balls, she uses both hands and she's in mainstream pre-school," Zitlow says.

Cord blood research is being done on other conditions and diseases, such as type 1 diabetes.

"There's interest in cardiology, hearing loss, wide range of therapies. So we don't know what the limit is," Zitlow says. 

Certainly, we don't know how far children with cerebral palsy might go, but so far stem cell research shows amazing promise.

The first young patient in the study could begin treatment in just a couple of weeks.

©2010 KOLD. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.