Cord blood banking is significant in treating blood cell ailments

CHENNAI: With cord blood awareness month being observed, experts emphasise on supporting community cord blood banking in order to provide cord blood cells to provide a fresh lease of life by helping them treat several ailments related to blood cells.

Dr Pritesh Junagade, Haematologist, Hematologist and Oncologist (Blood Disorder and Cancer Specialist) said “In most of the blood-related disorders treatable by transplants, the patients’ own stem cells are not suitable. Hence, the best donor is a close family member, usually a sibling." Very often there were no appropriate bone marrow donors and the cost of retrieval of matching units from public cord blood banks is quite high.

Lifecell International, an organisation working towards making cord blood transplants affordable and more accessible in India through cord blood banking initiative recently celebrated it's first-of-its-kind unit cord blood transplant procedure of a 9-year-old survivor of Aplastic Anemia. The child was donated cord blood unit cells by two children from Delhi and Hyderabad and was successfully treated through dual unit transplantation.

Dr Biju George, Professor - Head, Department of Haematology says that a high-quality match from an unrelated donor can prove to be life saving for the ones who do not have a donor. He added that maintaining a bank of cord blood cells is significant in a successful transplant to treat these ailments. A lot of patients look for a matching donor through a stem cell registry or donor center. However, there is a need of more awareness for people to opt to register for blood cell donation.