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Boy gets sister's umbilical cord blood
By Cai Wenjun |
August 25, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
AN eight-year-old boy was given umbilical cord blood from his 22-month-old sister at a local hospital yesterday to treat his leukemia.
Doctors from Shanghai Daopei Hospital said the blood was a perfect match for the boy, whose prognosis will be known in a month.
Umbilical cord blood, collected during the delivery of a baby, and bone marrow are used in similar ways for blood and immunity disease treatment. The key ingredient in both is stem cells. Stem cells from umbilical cord blood are less mature than those in adult bone marrow, less prone to rejection by the recipient and more active in developing into different types of cells.
The boy identified by the nickname Jia Jia, a Jiangsu Province native, developed acute leukemia at the age of five with symptoms including shortness of breath, pale face, nosebleeds and joint pain.
The disease was well under control after he received chemotherapy. Jia Jia went to school with children his age.
Concerned about Jia Jia's leukemia, his parents gave birth to a girl in 2009, and they kept and stored her umbilical cord blood at Shanghai Cord Blood Bank.
The boy had a sudden relapse this year. Doctors suggested a stem cell transplant because Jia Jia's situation deteriorated quickly and his organs, seriously stressed in the chemotherapy, would not sustain a second round.
The parents faxed the information about Jia Jia to the cord blood bank, which found his sister's cord blood was a perfect match for all six key DNA genes for leukemia.
The probability of such a match was about 25 percent.
Doctors from Shanghai Daopei Hospital said the blood was a perfect match for the boy, whose prognosis will be known in a month.
Umbilical cord blood, collected during the delivery of a baby, and bone marrow are used in similar ways for blood and immunity disease treatment. The key ingredient in both is stem cells. Stem cells from umbilical cord blood are less mature than those in adult bone marrow, less prone to rejection by the recipient and more active in developing into different types of cells.
The boy identified by the nickname Jia Jia, a Jiangsu Province native, developed acute leukemia at the age of five with symptoms including shortness of breath, pale face, nosebleeds and joint pain.
The disease was well under control after he received chemotherapy. Jia Jia went to school with children his age.
Concerned about Jia Jia's leukemia, his parents gave birth to a girl in 2009, and they kept and stored her umbilical cord blood at Shanghai Cord Blood Bank.
The boy had a sudden relapse this year. Doctors suggested a stem cell transplant because Jia Jia's situation deteriorated quickly and his organs, seriously stressed in the chemotherapy, would not sustain a second round.
The parents faxed the information about Jia Jia to the cord blood bank, which found his sister's cord blood was a perfect match for all six key DNA genes for leukemia.
The probability of such a match was about 25 percent.
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