Cord Blood Stem Cell Preservation

[raro]

our baby is due in 2 or 3 weeks and we are thinking of keeping the stem cells from the cord blood. Apparently there are several companies in Thailnad offering this service.

Does anyone out there use such service and if yes can you comment on it?

[raro]

ok....I move it to the health forum, maybe more luck here...

[Comehome]

Hi!

We were asked to do that when our daughter was born at Bangkok Hospital.

We didn't go through with it.

If i remember correctly it cost around 100 000baht.

I am not sure how long time after birth it is possible to collect the samples they need.

I dont remember the name of the company and i threw away the info since we did not take the offer.

Call Bangkok hospital and ask, i am sure they can help you with more info.

Our daughter was born in Bangkok hospital Koh samui.

Take care

/comehome

[Sheryl]

Many, perhaps even most, of the upscale private hospitals now offer this.

The blood is taken from the umbilical cord and thus must be done immediately at birth.

As hospitals have only recently started to offer this in Thailand there has been little experience with how reliable the service is in being able to provide properly stored viable stem cells years later when needed. That would be my main concern. Make sure there is soem sort of contractual guarantee that you get your money back if they are not able to provide this at any time in the child's life or that iof a sibling. (the stem cells may also be a suitable match for use by a sibling or even by them other, should the need arise).

I would trust an established hospital over a private company to be reliable in this matter.

In the West where this has eben done longer there have indeed beebn cases where cells from cord blood have been used successfully to treat a serious condition.

See http://www.cordblood.com/cord_blood_faqs/c...bid=x4Z_nyYogy- for more info.

[raro]

I did some research myself in the meantime and it makes 100% sense to collect the cord blood. It is a once in a lifetime chance to collect stem cells that would otherwise be thrown away and not help anyone. Lots of nasty diseases are curable with it nowadays and chances are there are more to come in the future.

So...overall not a big investment into something that could become a life saver later on, for the baby and the parents.

[kipthai]

ht tp://www.thaistemlife.co.th/newindex/english/index.html

this is the company family friends have used after extensive research, i hear they are the oldest, largest and also the only ones with releases of stored baby stem cells that indirectly guarantee that what you keep is viable.

you'll find all info in the website.

good luck

[gregb]

We're alot further out than a couple of weeks (about 6 months actually), but I have been researching this idea seriously. I know I will feel terrible in the future if it ever turns out that my child could have been saved by doing this, but I elected not to proceed. That said, I so far have not been convinced that there is any value to the procedure.

Unlike bone marrow or organ transplant, stem cells are apparently much more forgiving in how and when they can be used for treating diseases. In fact, there is a realistic possibility that you can get a match from a public donation bank even if you do not save your baby's stem cells. Public depositories do not yet exist in Thailand, but they do exist in the West and are apparently quite popular.

Figures are fuzzy here, but there seems to be a consensus that in a large number of cases you do not recover enough cord blood from the placenta to get a useful mass of stem cells. In that case you not only wasted the collection fee, but also the storage fees, and when you are talking 100,000 baht, that is a bunch of money to throw down the toilet. I have been trying to pin down an actual number here, but so far nobody has told me anything other than "this is the most likely reason for cord blood being rejected when sent to a public bank.' About 50% of samples sent to a public bank are discarded without being stored.

In the case of genetic disorders, the stem cells are useless to the original party because they also contain the same disease. However, there is the option of using a sibling's cord blood, and in fact this seems to be the most utilized function in privately stored stem cells. The statistics do seem to uphold the argument that if you only have 1 child, it is a huge waste of money. There are almost no recorded cases of using privately banked stem cells for the original donor. I read one paper that said after exhaustive research they could only find 14 actual cases, and it wasn't clear if in any of these cases it actually significantly improved the child's chances of survival. It is less clear about the relative valuation when a family member can use the stem cells to cure a genetic problem. Do your own research here because I can no longer find the paper where I read this. Google will provide you with over 20,000 hits.

It seems to me that given current medical technology, it does not make sense. If so, then what you are really paying for is the possibility that a future medical breakthrough may uncover a way to use these cells for currently unknown therapies. Again, there are so many unknowns here that it is truly difficult to come to a rational conclusion.

I have an additional problem which is that we are expecting twins. My research says that while all the private businesses will happily accept my money in this case, the chances of getting sufficient blood from the 2 placentas and keeping it separate and isolated until it is successfully stored is extremely small. That means I'll be paying for something which will likely be cross contaminated or otherwise unusable. Again, future technology may provide a new technique for using this, but it is yet one more complication.

I would love to hear from someone who has first hand experience in regenerative therapies and how much value they assign to saving cord blood. The marketing for this service is very strong, and who could say no to even a small chance to help your child? Are the people who do not opt to do this bad parents?

BTW, here was one article which I found particularly illuminating. It's worth reading just to get an idea of what the issues truly are:

http://www.parents.com/pregnancy/my-baby/c...od-controversy/

Edited January 15, 2010 by gregb

[ThaiMouse]

Hi, I did extensive research into the keep ing of cord stem cells. There is a promotion on at present at Bangkok Hospital Phuket, storage and collection 90,000.00 Baht. Normally 130,000.00 Baht.

Now comes the interesting part, try and get the stem cell blood back for use by the baby or parents, cost............. 1 MILLION Baht. For efs sake people, who has that type of money laying around???

It is a bloody rip-off as everybody is collecting commisions and kick-backs. Take out insurance at a much lower premium for the child to cover these matters if they do crop up in in the future. There is also an outcry at costs in the USA, South Africa and now Asia.

Bottom line, . . . good idea, money making racket! Up to you if you have money to throw around.

[Gulfsailor]

Interesting opinion from someone with medical knowledge on the subject:

The director of the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University in California, said the well-meaning parents were being fleeced by the stem cell bankers... US Scientists warn...