Sort diseases treated with cord blood into 3 categories:

Standard Therapies

Therapies in Clinical Trials

Experimental Treatments

 

Before choosing the right form of cord blood banking it is also important to distinguish between two modes of treatment:

 

Allogeneic - patient receives stem cells from a matching donor, either a sibling or an unrelated donor

Autologous - patient receives their own stem cells

 

When parents donate cord blood to a public bank, they are supporting patients around the world who are searching for an unrelated Allogeneic donor. When parents save cord blood in a family bank, they are reserving the options that the baby can use its own stem cells for an Autologous treatment, or an immediate relative (sibling or parents) can use the stem cells for an Allogeneic treatment.

 

Standard Therapies with blood-forming stem cells

These are diseases for which transplants of blood-forming stem cells (Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplants, HSCT) are a standard treatment. For some diseases they are the only therapy, and in other diseases they are only employed when front-line therapies have failed or the disease is very aggressive. The lists below include ALL therapies that use blood-forming stem cells, without distinction as to whether the stem cells were extracted from bone marrow, peripheral blood, or cord blood.

 

Most of the diseases for which HSCT is a standard treatment are disorders of blood cell lineage. The proliferation by which blood cells are formed from stem cells is illustrated in the side graphic (click on the image to expand it); you can also read about specific cell types in the immune system in more detail. In the United States, most health insurance providers will pay for a stem cell transplant if it is a "standard therapy" for the patient's diagnosis.

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Leukemia is a cancer of the blood immune system, where the cells are called leukocytes or white cells

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