Thalassemia cured using cord blood stem cells

[r_umachander]

Thalassemia arises when blood corpuseles (RBC) production is defective. A person suffers from the disease only when he inherits a defective gene from both parents. He becomes a carrier when he inherits a defective gene from only one parent. The diseased person has to undergo blood transfusion once every month for the rest of his life.

Gold Standard

Though stem cells separated from bone marrow have been used for more than 30 years to treat thalassemia and is a gold standard in treating the disease,cold blood stem cells are slowly becoming an attractive alternative.

Perfect match

A 6/6 (perfect match) is required for the thalassemia. Even a 5/6 match is not sufficient. Doctors refrain from related donors,even if there is a perfect match. Apart from infections,there are two major challenges from transplantation -graft versus host disease (GVHD) and rejection of the donated stem cells. In general,greater the tissue match and higher the stem cell count in cord blood,lesser are the chances of rejection and GVHD.

Eight year old Thamirabharani and her one year old brother Pugazhendi share a special kind of bond not commonly seen amongst siblings. Thanks to her brother,Thamirabharani no longer suffers from thalassemia disease. The cells
transplanted in March,2009 helped her get rid of thalassemia. And hundred days afterthe procedure,the disease had been cured. The stem cells that were transferred came from two different sources -her brother's cord blood,which was harvested during the time of his birth and his bone marrow had to be transplanted as there was insufficient number of stem cells in Pugazhendi's cord blood. In the absence of cord blood stem cells,about 200 ml of bone marrow was required. It was difficult to get this quantity of bone marrow from a nine month old baby. The cord blood was collected by and stored at Chennai based Life Cell International Pvt.Ltd , a private cord blood bank.