Medical experts are urging health authorities to issue rules on
umbilical cord blood storage and use to boost donations of the
life-saving stem cells.
The cells from newborn babies can treat leukemia and other
diseases of the immune system, but only two percent of the city's
150,000 newborns delivered last year donated umbilical cord
blood.
Currently, hospitals don't ask new mothers whether they want to
keep, donate or throw away the umbilical cord blood, officials told
a science forum on cord blood technology in Shanghai yesterday.
"Twenty-nine states in the United States are making or have made
rules on the issue. For instance, doctors in Arizona must ask
parents' plans for umbilical cord blood starting this year," said
Zheng Bin, an official from Shanghai Cord Blood Bank. "It is a very
meaningful method to promote the awareness of cord blood use."
According to him, the bank only collected 3,000 samples for
private storage or donation in 2006.
So far, the bank has established links with some 30 local
hospitals offering maternity services to provide information on
cord blood storage and donation.
"Less than 40 percent of pregnant women have heard of umbilical
cord blood," Zheng said. "Even many doctors or health officials are
ignorant on the issue."
According to experts, cord blood and bone marrow transplants are
used in similar ways. The key ingredient in both is stem cells that
give rise to all other cells in the body, including blood and
immune cells.
But stem cells in cord blood are less mature than those in adult
bone marrow, so there is less rejection by the recipient.
"The chances of finding an acceptable matching donor for a
patient is 50 to 100 times higher with umbilical cord blood
compared to bone marrow," said Gao Feng, a member of an expert
panel on cord blood under the Ministry of Health.
About 40,000 to 50,000 Chinese are diagnosed with leukemia every
year. Only one percent of patients are able to receive a stem cell
transplant because of the difficulty of finding a matching
donor.
"Cord blood is an important alternative for patients to find a
matched sample," said Zheng. "Researchers are using stem cells to
treat leukemia, spinal injuries and cardiac muscle injuries. In
Japan, half of patients get samples from the cord blood bank and
half get donations from a bone marrow bank."
(Shanghai Daily August 30, 2007)