A grandfather of seven is the latest person to have been saved from cancer by a treatment using umbilical cord stem cells.
60-year-old David Pyrne was diagnosed with leukaemia in August 2012. David underwent a series of blood transfusions and chemotherapy treatments to eradicate the disease.
Chemotherapy is common treatment for leukaemia because it is highly effective at killing leukaemic cells. Unfortunately it damages other types of cells as well, including the cells in the bone marrow that generate blood. Because of that damage to the other cells, the amount of chemotherapy that a patient can receive is somewhat limited.
For David, the chemotherapy treatments hadn’t killed all of the cancer-carrying cells and his body could not tolerate another round of chemotherapy. His prognosis was very poor. His only remaining option was to use stem cells from umbilical cord blood.
The Power of Umbilical Cord Stem Cells
The haematopoietic stem cells found in umbilical cords and bone marrow can generate blood cells. These kinds of stem cells are responsible for generating billions of blood cells everyday. After his chemotherapy treatments David’s ability to create blood cells and immune system cells was significantly depleted.
The umbilical cord stem cell transplant was used to renewed that ability and allowed greater doses of chemotherapy to be used. The umbilical cord stem cells also passed on a number of immune cells that strengthened his body against the cancer.
The umbilical cord stem cells used in David’s transplant came from public stem cell banks in the United States and France. He was very lucky that a close genetic match could be found, because rejection can be an issue with stem cell transplants.
After six weeks in hospital, David is happily in remission. He will now get to see his grandchildren grow up to be adults. Another success story thanks to the phenomenal regenerative powers of umbilical cord stem cells!
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