Saving Precious Stem Cells for your Family as you prepare for the arrival of your baby, one of the first and most important decisions you may need to make is choosing to save your baby's cord blood.
CORDLIFE Philippines: One Chance, One Choice. The Cordlife team, led by brand manager, Ms. Jonelyn De Belen along with medical and brand experts were able elucidate the participants on the benefits of banking Cord blood. There is only one opportunity to collect and store the stem cells found in the cord blood and this is only during birth.
Stem cells are at the forefront of one of the most fascinating and revolutionary areas of medicine today. Doctors recognize that stem cells have the potential to help treat numerous diseases by generating healthy new cells and tissue. A wide range of diseases is treatable with stem cells such as acute and chronic forms of leukemia and myeloproliferative disorders to name a few.
Cordlife alone offers expert cord blood banking services and as a group, has released a total of 35 cord blood units to date.
Today, diseases including certain cancers and blood disorders may eb treated with hematopoietic stem cells that can be found in cord blood. Arecent study reported that as many as 1 in 217 individuals may need a stem cell transplant in their lifetime.
That is why saving your baby's cord blood could be a lifesaving decision for your little one and your family. Find out more about cord blood banking with Cordlife today.
Introducing Cordlife, the Philippines' first cord blood processing and cryopreservation facility.
Cordlife collects, processes and stores cord blood stem cells which may later become potential source material for lifesaving treatment. We provide families with high quality cord blood processing and storage services to protect their children's cord blood stem cells.
Thier facilities are built in line with world-class standards such as American Association of Blood Banks, Therapeutic Goods Administration, and ISO.
Since their inception in Singapore in 2001, they have established a rigorous quality system and track record of clinically reliable cord blood banking service that was first certified by Singapore's Ministry of Health, and subsequently accredited in 2005 by the world's most recognized quality standards in cord blood banking - American Association of Blood Banks.
Diseases Treated with Stem Cells
The following is a list of some of the diseases that have been treated with cord blood and other sources of similar type of stem cells (Haematopoietic Stem Cell), like bone marrow and peripheral blood. Stem cell therapies continue to change and evolve quickly.
BLOOD CANCERS
- Acute Myelogenous Leukaemia
- Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia
- Chronic Myelogenous Leukaemia
- Histiocytic Neoplasms
- Other Myeloproliferative Neoplasms
- Myelodysplastic syndrome
- Multiple Myeloma
- Plasma Cell Leukaemia
- Systemic Mastocytosis
- Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia
SOLID TUMORS
- Hodgkin Lymphoma
- Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
- Langerhans' Cell Histiocytosis
- Neuroblastoma
- Retinoblastoma
NON-MALIGNANT BLOOD DISORDERS
- Aplastic Anaemia
- Chediak-Higashi Syndrome
- Congenital Dyserythropoietic Anaemia
- Diamond-Blackfan Syndrome
- DiGeorge Syndrome
- Evans Syndrome
- Fanconi's Anaemia
- Glanzmann'sThrombasthenia
- Gunther’s Disease (erythropoietic porphyria)
- Hereditary BM failure syndromes
- Hemophagocytic Lymphohistiocytosis
- Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency
- Paroxysmal Nocturnal Hemoglobinuria
- Pure Red Cell Aplasia
- Sickle Cell Anaemia
- Thalassemia Major
IMMUNODEFICIENCY DISORDERS
- Chronic Granulomatous Disease
- Common Variable Immunodeficiency
- Cartilage-Hair Hypoplasia
- Reticular Dysgenesis
- Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID)
- Shwachman-Diamond Syndrome
- Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome
METABOLIC DISORDERS
- Adrenoleukodystrophy
- Gaucher's Disease
- Hurler Syndrome
- Hunter’s Syndrome
- Krabbe Disease
- Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome
- Maroteaux-Lamy Syndrome
- Metachromatic leukodystrophy
- Osteopetrosis
- Sly Syndrome, Beta-Glucuronidase Deficiency
- Wolman Disease
Clinical Trials
With the advancement of stem cell* research, the potential for future use of stem cell grows.
Below is a list of diseases currently under Clinical Trials. These are diseases for which stem cell* treatments appear to be beneficial, but have not been adopted as standard therapy. For some of these diseases, stem cell transplants only slow the progression of the disease, but do not produce a cure. For other diseases, stem cell treatments may help effect a cure, but further research is needed to determine the best candidate patients for stem cell therapy, the optimum stem cell dosage, the optimum method of cell delivery, etc.
For some patients, clinical research trials represent an avenue for receiving promising new therapies that would not otherwise be available. Patients with difficult to treat or currently "incurable" diseases, such as AIDS or certain types of cancer, may want to pursue participation in clinical research trials if standard therapies are not effective. Clinical research trials are sometimes lifesaving.
- Autism
- Brain Tumor
- Cartilage Repair
- Cleft Palate Repair (Alveolar)
- Cerebral palsy
- Crohn’s disease
- Critical Limb Ischemia
- Diabetes Type 1
- Epidermolysis Bullosa
- Ewing Sarcoma
- Graft-versus-Host Disease (GvHD)
- Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE)
- Hearing Loss
- HIV
- Ischemic Stroke
- Lupus
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Myocardial Infarction
- Ovarian Cancer
- Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Spinal cord injury
- Scleroderma
- Testicular Tumour
- Experimental Treatments
These are randomised controlled trials conducted in a scientific laboratory involving in-vitro (test tube or cell culture) and in-vivo (animal) work.
- Alzheimer's Disease
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- Congenital hydrocephalus
- Huntington's Disease
- Liver cirrhosis
- Parkinson's Disease
- Traumatic Brain Injury
Why Save Cord Blood
Top 10 reasons why you should consider banking cord blood
- 1 in 200 individuals1 may need a hematopoeitic stem cell (HSCs) transplant by the age of 70.
- 60% higher chance2 of match versus bone marrow in a family.
- Research showed that patients have a lower chance of complications in transplants when they receive stem cells from a relative3.
- Some of the most common cancers, such as leukaemia and lymphoma, are treatable with stem cell transplant. In the Philippines, leukaemia is one of the top 10 cancers for both men and women; and for men, lymphoma is also in the top 104. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) is the most common type of leukaemia in children, with 79% of childhood ALL occurring between the ages 1-9 years4.
- A guaranteed match for autologous transplants (where the donor and recipient are the same individual).
- A readily available supply of stored hematopoeitic stem cells. This compares well to having to do a national or international search which is costly and time-consuming in an already time critical situation.
- Lower risk of Graft vs. Host Disease (GvHD) for allogeneic transplants, a situation where the transplanted tissue attacks the patient’s own tissue.
- Umbilical cord blood stem cells are younger, have a higher rate of engraftment and are more tolerant to tissue mismatches, compared to other types of stem cells, e.g. bone marrow.
- Ease of collection, which is pain-free and risk-free to both mother and child.
- It is once-in-a-lifetime chance to collect cord blood – a readily available source when needed in the future.
How is Cord Blood collected by your OBGYN
Safe and painless for you and your baby
Whether you have a natural birth or a C-section, the process of collecting your newborn baby’s stem cells is safe, painless and non-disruptive to your birth plan.
After your baby is born, the umbilical cord is clamped and cut by your OBGYN (obstetrician / gynaecologist). That is when a needle is inserted into the umbilical cord to collect the remaining blood which would otherwise be discarded as medical waste.
Our collection bags - AABB approved and heparin-free - are sterile for both C-section and vaginal births and are simple for your doctor to use. If you also decide to collect the umbilical cord lining, the umbilical cord is cleaned, a segment is placed into the provided collection jar, and it is sent back to our lab with the cord blood bag.
Once collection is done, your OBGYN or midwife will seal the bag, attach the pre-printed labels with your information and place it in the Cordlife collection kit.
Please note that the final decision of whether the cord blood collection should take place will always reside with your caregiver whose first priority is the safety of you and your baby.
From your delivery room, to our lab.
After you have notified us of your delivery and reviewed the kit’s contents and pre-printed labels, a medical courier will pick up the collection kit from your hospital room and deliver it to the Cordlife processing and storage laboratory. We will notify you as soon as your kit arrives at our laboratory.
How is Cord Blood Processed and Stored
Stem cell isolation is a critical step in cord blood banking. It affects the number of stem cells that can be harvested or recovered from the cord blood. Cell recovery rates are critical because a higher number of stem cells could enhance the success of the transplant or treatment. That's why Cordlife has invested in the Sepax 2 automated stem cell processing technology, a safe, sterile and fully automated cord blood processing technology – so you get more stem cells for maximum transplant success.
The first and only private cord blood bank in the Philippines that offers the Sepax 2 automated processing technology, this Swiss-made and U.S. FDA-cleared device can recover as high as 99.46%1 of Total Nucleated Cells (TNC) from cord blood; up to 57%2 cell count higher than other processing methods. It is also a functionally closed processing system which ensures the sterility of the cord blood by eliminating exposure to air contaminants.
Future application of cord blood stem cells
The list of stem cell treatable diseases continues to grow at a rapid pace. With the potential to become different cell types, scientists are exploring the possibility of using cord blood stem cells to treat some of the most common life-threatening diseases such as heard diseases and stroke. Thus saving your baby’s cord blood now can ensure your child's access to his/her own stem cells for such cellular therapy in the future.
Current most commonly researched treatments:
Repair nerve cells:
to heal brain and spinal cord injuries or brain damage caused by stroke
Regenerate cells to form new blood vessels:
to treat heart and circulatory disease
Replace damaged cells:
to improve recovery from cardiovascular diseases, a heart attack, or injury
Regenerate brain cells:
to treat brain injury, cerebral palsy and Parkinson’s disease
Cordlife Medical Philippines, Inc. is registered with the Department of Health in the Philippines.
For more information visit Cordlife's social media accounts:
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