Hugh Fagan recently had a happy reunion with the doctor who performed a life-saving procedure on him more than 6 years ago. Mr Fagan’s life was saved by Dr Colleen Delaney when she performed a cord blood transplant to help him beat an aggressive form of leukaemia.

Mr Fagan is just one of thousands of people saved by a cord blood transplant in recent years. Also present at the reunion were Hugh’s wife Aimee and their young daughter Kate. 

They reunited with Dr Delaney at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research, where 6 years earlier they had first discusses Hugh’s case. It was a very emotional reunion for Aimee, who was the person frantically searching for new techniques that might cure her husband’s cancer. She first spoke to Dr Delaney via a late night phone call and quickly got her husband to Seattle for a cord blood transplant.

The blood found in the umbilical cord and placenta is very rich in hematopoietic stem cells which have the ability to create new blood cells. Traditionally, umbilical cord blood would be discarded as medical waste after a baby is born. Now that more hospitals understand the value of cord blood stem cells, it is often cryogenically frozen at a public or private stem cell bank.

One of the main advantages of cord blood stem cells is that they are less prone to rejection than bone marrow stem cells. That was crucial for Hugh, because doctors could not find a suitable bone marrow match.

Dr Delaney was one of the researchers who developed a technique to multiply the number of hematopoietic stem cells available in cord blood, by as much as 200-times. 

As more hospitals recognise the value of umbilical cord blood, more is being preserved and that will result in more lives being saved by a cord blood transplant.

Source: Leukaemia Survivor Saved by Cord Blood Transplant Reunites with Doctor

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