Use and Applications
Physicians and researchers have begun to make progress evaluating the safety and efficacy of umbilical cord blood stem cells for certain therapeutic uses beyond blood cancers and genetic diseases of the blood.
The use of cord blood stem cells in treating conditions such as brain injury and type 1 diabetes is being studied in humans, and earlier stage research is being conducted for treatments of stroke, and hearing loss. However, apart from blood disorders, the use of cord blood for other diseases is not a routine clinical modality and remains a major challenge for the stem cell community.
Current estimates indicate that approximately 1 in 3 Americans could benefit from regenerative medicine, and children whose cord blood stem cells are available for their own potential use could be among the first to benefit from new therapies as they become available. With autologous cells, a person’s own cells, there is no risk of the immune system rejecting the cells, and therefore physicians and researchers only perform these potential cord blood therapies on children who have their own stem cells available.
Researchers are exploring the use of cord blood stem cells in the following regenerative medicine applications:
Read more about this topic: Cord Blood