Umbilical cord blood may repair birth defects

Posted on December 16, 2008 at 1:15am by

Young Guns II rip download The 81st Annual Academy Awards Stem cells from umbilical cord blood may provide the raw material to help thousands of babies born each year with birth defects like defective heart valves.

Chaos trailer This, according to data presented at a recent American Heart Association meeting.

Problems with the heart’s structure that are present at birth, or congenital heart defects, are the most common type of major birth defect. In children with the defect, the valves do not fully open or close and impede the flow of blood. While children can receive transplants from donors or artificial material, these valves will not grow as children do and require repeated operations to receive larger valves. In theory, replacement heart valves that are made from the child’s own cord blood stem cells would grow with the child and change shape as needed.

Researchers plan to begin experiments next year to test their procedures involving the cord blood stem cells in animals, and cardiologists say they are about five years away from giving children with heart defects valve transplants made from the child’s own cord blood.

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