Lack of patient access limits promising cell therapy

August 30, 2009

By hammersmith

[Source: The Arizona Republic] – Among the many decisions that parents face before the birth of their child is a potentially critical one: whether to preserve their infant’s umbilical-cord blood on the chance that he or she will need it someday to treat a serious illness.

Parents can pay thousands of dollars to privately store their newborn’s umbilical-cord blood or they can donate the blood to a public bank for free.

Nine out of 10 new parents do neither, which means their children’s umbilical cords are discarded as medical waste.

That discard rate is posing a threat to the expansion of a promising new health-care field.

For more information: Lack of patient access limits promising cell therapy