Archive for August 2011

A new stem cell treatment costing around AU$2,500 is now available for pets. The treatment involves new cells being placed into damaged tissue to treat disease or injury. Injured and arthritic dogs are undergoing stem cell treatment for the first time at two separate vet clinics in Mundaring and Champion Lakes in Western Australia. The…

A study is being conducted by China’s Qingdao University to investigate the efficacy of cord blood to treat liver cirrhosis. Cirrhosis of the liver is now the third highest cause of death in the Western world. The devastating disease is caused by factors including alcohol abuse and hepatitis resulting in scarring and poor liver function.…

A little girl suffering from sickle cell anaemia is now well and back at school following an umbilical cord blood stem cell transfusion from her brother. Since birth, American girl Carol Mulumba, now 10, had been shuttled to and from emergency rooms and specialists, fighting Sickle cell anaemia – an inherited abnormality of the blood…

A significant clinical trial due to start later this year across Europe, will aim to slow, stop or even reverse the damage Multiple Sclerosis (MS) causes to the brain and spinal cord. Researchers will collect stem cells from the bone marrow of patients, grow them in the laboratory and then re-inject them into their blood.…

The National Marrow Donor Program in the United States projects that 10,000 cord blood stem cell transplants will be performed annually by 2015, up from 2,000 in 2006… an increase of a staggering 500% according to Dr Robert Dracker, Executive Medical Director, Americord Registry. The leading haematologist, transfusion medicine specialist and recognised leader in cord…

Every year, 600 women die of breast cancer in New Zealand, and 11% of all women are expected to be diagnosed during their lifetime. However a study undertaken by doctors at the Stanford School of Medicine is hoping to one day make this a thing of the past. The study found that women with advanced…