Amazing recovery attributed to cord blood
Toddler diagnosed with cerebral palsy shows remarkable improvement
Baby gets stem cell treatment
March 11: NBC's Michael Okwu reports on one little boy who's made a
dramatic recovery from his diagnosis of cerebral palsy thanks to some
cutting-edge treatment.
By Bob Considine
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 11:41 a.m. ET, Tues., March. 11, 2008
Dallas Hextell was already a miracle to parents Cynthia and Derak,
after they spent three years trying to get pregnant.
But now he is looking like a medical miracle to the rest of the
world.
The 2-year-old son of the Sacramento, Calif., couple was diagnosed
with cerebral palsy, but is now showing fewer signs of the disorder
and marked improvement after an infusion of his own stem cells — made
possible by the preservation of his own cord blood shortly before
birth.
Derak Hextell now believes his son will be cured of the incurable
malady.
"[Dallas' doctors] said by the age of 7, there may be no signs of
cerebral palsy at all," Hextell told TODAY co-host Meredith Vieira
while holding a curious Dallas on his lap. "So he's on his way, as
far as we're concerned."
For Cynthia Hextell, the changes in Dallas just five days after the
intravenous infusion of his cord blood cells are not coincidental.
"[He's changed] almost in every way you can imagine, just from five
days afterwards saying `mama' and waving," she said. "We just feel
like right now he really connects with you.
"It just seemed like a fog was over him before, like he just really
wasn't there. There was kind of, like a glaze in his eyes. Now, as
you can see, you can't get anything past him."
A difficult start
The joy of Dallas' birth in 2006 was met with gradual heartbreak as
he was unable to feed from his mother. He was constantly crying and
rarely opened his eyes. At five months, Dallas had trouble balancing
himself and his head was often cocked to one side.
The Hextells switched pediatricians when Dallas was eight months old
and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy — a group of nonprogressive
disorders that affect a person's ability to move and to maintain
balance and posture.
Various studies show that the damage to the motor-control centers of
the young, developing brain that causes CP occurs during pregnancy,
although there are smaller percentages of the disorder occurring
during childbirth and after birth through the age of 3.
"I think it's important to remind people that cerebral palsy has to
do with the motor part of the brain and usually kids don't
deteriorate,
editor. "But they have significant motor problems, which explains why
he wasn't a good sucker when he was breast-feeding as a baby and all
of this colicky stuff that sort of confused the diagnosis."
There is no known cure for cerebral palsy, and the treatments to help
manage its debilitating effects make it the second-most expensive
developmental disability to manage over a person's lifetime, behind
mental disabilities.
At 18 months, Dallas had very limited motor skills. He could not
crawl, clap or sit up and he communicated only through screaming
brought on mostly by pain and frustration.
Life-changing decision
During her pregnancy, Cynthia Hextell had done thorough Web research
on health issues relating to childbirth and came across a pop-up ad
for Cord Blood Registry, the world's largest family cord blood stem
cell bank. The San Bruno, Calf.-based company has preserved cord
blood stem cells for more than 200,000 newborns throughout the world.
Hextell said the cost of saving Dallas' cord blood — about $2,000 and
not covered by insurance — was off-putting. But she ultimately
registered for CBR, thinking she would rather put up the money and
not use it rather than have saved it and regretted it later.
(Cord Blood Registry spokesman David Zitlow said the procedure costs
$2,000 for processing and $120 per year for storage.)
"We had a perfectly healthy pregnancy, but it did take us three years
to get pregnant," Cynthia Hextell told Vieira. "It was a good chance
he was going to be our only child, so that was one thing that if we
were going to do it, this was our only chance.
"Heart disease ran in [Derak Hextell's] family. I was adopted, so I
knew if we ever needed something, Dallas and I were the only ones
[who could provide a genetic match]. So those were things [we
considered], but nothing like I thought something was going to be
wrong with my child. Literally, it took us until about two weeks
before our due date to make the final decision because it is
expensive."
After Dallas was diagnosed, the Hextells traveled to Duke University,
where doctors were using cord blood as part of a clinical trial to
treat a small number of children who had cerebral palsy or brain
damage. Mrs. Hextell called some of the parents of the children and
all of them reported tangible improvement in their children following
the transplant of stem cells, evidenced in better speech and motor
skills.
So the Hextells agreed to infuse Dallas' own stem cells back into his
bloodstream last July, a procedure that took less than an hour.
Within five days, a different child emerged — laughing, clapping,
waving and reacting.
"We think [the transfusion] has a real big part to do with it because
it was such a drastic change within five days of the procedure taking
place," Derak Hextell said. "It had to be because he wasn't reaching
the milestones that he's reaching now. He was falling further and
further behind."
"Before he went to Duke, we were trying to teach him to use a
walker," Cynthia Hextell said. "Now he walks with no assistance at
all."
Saving the cells
Although Dallas' case was not part of a controlled case study,
Snyderman said it should not be overlooked in the progressing studies
of stem cell treatments.
"I think the thing that medicine has not done very well is we haven't
made a big enough deal about anecdotes," she said. "This is not a
controlled case study. It's not a randomized clinical trial. But it
is a child with a diagnosis who got a transfusion of stem cells and
not only stopped the deterioration of his problems, [but] he's doing
better.
"So I take it very seriously. And I think it's an extraordinary
reminder that cord blood, that stuff that is thrown away with the
placenta in the emergency room as sort of medical waste, can have
extraordinary applications. We're all offered it in the delivery
room."
Snyderman didn't have to convince one person about the promise of
those stem cells.
Said Cynthia Hextell: "They're like gold."
http://www.msnbc.
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
____________________________________________
«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«¤»§«¤»¥«
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___
No comments:
Post a Comment