News and analysis
This fall, University of Alberta Hospitals and the Canadian Red Cross opened the country's first umbilical-cord blood (UCB) bank, where cells capable of kick-starting the blood and immune systems of patients who have received aggressive chemotherapy or radiation therapy are cryogenically stored. Dr. John Akabutu, a pediatric hematologist and oncologist, is overseeing the project. He says UCB contains stem cells and progenitor cells, which can help patients recover from the damage caused by potent anticancer treatments. He says UCB transplants may eventually replace bone-marrow transplants. The use of UCB is becoming more popular because it is easier to find a UCB match than a bone-marrow transplant match, and graft-versus-host disease is unlikely.
Other uses for UCB include genetic therapies in which stem cells are trained to fight off viral infections before being transplanted into a host. Akabutu says technology that makes the use of UCB possible also raises new ethical questions for physicians. No one knows what to do if screening tests involving UCB donations uncover a genetic condition, such as Huntington disease, in the donor. Should physicians tell the parents of the newborn whose blood was saved? Such questions may be difficult to answer. -- R. Cairney