Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Management Of Leukemia By Using Cord Blood Cells

By Miriam Davidson

Leukemia is known as a kind of cancer, related to the bone marrow and blood, causing the white blood cells present in the blood to decrease in number. It originates from the tissues that play a role in forming blood.

The condition of leukemia is such that leads to a massive loss of white blood cells in the blood stream. Its treatment should obviously involve the recovery of the cells lost, so that their number is brought up again. An effective treatment is that of cord blood, which is blood found in the umbilical cord.

As the name suggests, cord blood is gained fro the umbilical cord once it gets removed and from the placenta. Thus, it is gained from a female who has given birth to an infant.

Stem cells are present in cord blood in a high number, which is why cord blood is useful for the treatment of leukemia. Stem cells play a major role in repairing and curing cells that have been injured or affected by a disease. They are obtained from the destruction of an embryo.

The stem cells do so by their quality of being able to take the shape of any other cell or tissue in the body, so that they can replace the harmed ones.

The process by which cord blood is used to cure leukemia takes place when this blood is obtained from a mother who has just given birth. The person who is suffering from leukemia is then given a high dose of chemotherapy, and the stem cells start carrying out their function of replacing the damaged cells.

The real treatment takes place when the patient is infused with stem cells, which start producing white blood cells in order to make the amount of white blood cells reach the normal number. Thus, cord blood obtained at birth can be stored to be used whenever required.

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