双语：英上万父母为孩子储存脐带血 功效存疑.doc

双语：英上万父母为孩子储存脐带血 功效存疑 2011年11月15日08:46 Future proofed: Alex Silver and daughter Scarlett. She has banked her daughters umbilical cord blood in case of any future medical emergencies Today there are about ten businesses in the UK offering to freeze and store?cord bloodand industry insiders estimate that up to 100,000 parents have chosen to do so in the UK. The global stem-cell market is forecast to?trebleto a?staggeringā40 billion by 2015. Cord blood contains?embryonicstem cells. They can be made into more specialised cells and can reproduce copies of themselves almost indefinitely. There is currently research into?a host ofapplications – from growing new organs to curing?paraplegia. In theory, stem cells treat disease by replacing damaged or diseased cells. They are used in bone-marrow transplants to treat?leukaemia– but in these cases, donor blood taken in the usual way is used to harvest the stem cells. To bank cord stem cells, the cord blood is extracted minutes after the birth of the baby and rushed by?courierto be processed. Any cells that could be of future value are frozen at minus 180C and can then be stored for 25 years. There are no published examples of a child’s own cord blood being used to cure them of leukaemia – one of the most common childhood diseases mentioned by the banks in their sales?pitches. There are two cases of successful sibling transplants for children with the hereditary condition?thalassemia, where the body makes an abnormal form ofhaemoglobin– the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen. These were carried out in Singapore and Germany. Lavish promises of future treatments tend to be based on preliminary clinical trials – and should a child fall ill today, in many cases the technology doesn’t exist to actually use the harvested stem cells. In fact, some experts believe that reintroducing banked cord blood into a child could increase the chance of?relapse– as disease-causing cells that existed from birth would be stored alongside