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Podcast: Hall of Famer champions Cord Blood Banking LifebankUSA
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Cedar Knolls, NJ – In a compelling new podcast, baseball hall-of-famer Rod Carew urges parents to collect and store their baby’s valuable cord blood and placental stem cells with a private cord blood bank.
When it comes to professional baseball, Rod Carew had the type of legendary career aspiring kids dream about. A native of Panama, Carew lined, chopped and bunted his way to more than 3,000 career hits, seven batting titles, and a permanent place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. But when it came to the health of the star’s own daughter, even his will and talent could not make a difference.
At age 18, Michelle Carew was diagnosed with leukemia—a curve ball the Carew family never expected. Tragically, an intensive 9-month search for a bone marrow donor was unsuccessful. Her Panamanian and Jewish ethnic mix made it particularly difficult to find a suitable donor. As a last effort, Michelle’s doctor transplanted umbilical cord blood stem cells from an unrelated donor to try to rebuild her immune system but it was too late. Had the technology been available when she was born and the Carews had privately banked her cord blood, the perfect match stems cells would have been immediately available and she might still be with us today. Instead, despite an exhaustive nationwide search by a motivated and prominent father, Michelle passed away in 1996 before a donor could be located. “I wish this technology was here when Michelle was born, but it wasn’t,” Carew says. “Now there are no excuses.”
Locating a suitable match from public registries can be difficult and is often time-consuming. In fact, more than 30% of patients requiring transplant therapy are unable to find a suitable match [Source: Wagner, J, et al: Blood 2000 (5):1611-1618]. The statistical likelihood of finding a suitable donor further decreases for children of ethnic or racial minorities or adopted children. For these families, private cord blood banking improves the likelihood that a suitable transplant will be immediately available. Otherwise, without a privately banked unit, a search could take months and still be unsuccessful.
Today, parents have an opportunity to bank their baby’s placental and cord blood stem cells at birth to help best prepare and protect their family for the future. This was not an option for the Carews when their daughter Michelle was born. Had it been, those cells could have been privately stored and would have been immediately and exclusively available to the Carew family—which may have given young Michelle a chance to survive.
In honor and remembrance of Michelle, Mr. Carew’s mission is to make sure all parents know about their cord blood banking options, especially the potential lifesaving benefits of Placenta•Cord banking. This exclusive service of LifebankUSA™ enables families to bank stem cells from both the placenta and the umbilical cord—for more cells and more therapeutic promise. This groundbreaking service is the first and only of its kind and enables families to collect double the number of CD34+ stem cells, on average, than from just cord blood alone. (Other companies only collect stem cells from the blood in the umbilical cord.) The more blood-forming CD34+ stem cells the patient receives in the transplant, the greater the likelihood that the stem cells will be engrafted and the patient will recover. In a video podcast, Mr. Carew urges parents to preserve cord blood and placental stem cells that may save loved ones from Leukemia and other diseases. “I didn’t want other parents to go through what I went through,” says Carew. “Banking stem cells is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help save a life.”
The podcast also features interviews with LifebankUSA president Robert Hariri, MD, PhD and obstetrician/gynecologist Susan Roth Pittman, MD, as well as interviews with parents who chose to bank their baby’s cord blood and placental stem cells.
For more information on Placenta•Cord banking and to download the podcast with baseball legend Rod Carew, please visit http://www.lifebankusa.com/.
About LifebankUSATM
LifebankUSA is one of the largest cord blood banks in the world, and has provided cord blood banking services for thousands of families worldwide. LifebankUSA is a subsidiary of Celgene Corporation (Nasdaq: CELG), an S&P 500 publicly traded and reputable biopharmaceutical company that develops cancer therapies and has a disclosed market value of more than US Dollar 20 billion, making it the largest company offering cord blood banking services. LifebankUSA is the only cord blood bank that is also a recognized leader in both placental and cord blood stem cell research. LifebankUSA is also the world's first bank to offer families the new option to collect and preserve stem cells derived from the placenta as well as the umbilical cord (Placenta•Cord banking) for hematopoietic reconstitution. In addition to being the world's first Placenta•Cord banking company, LifebankUSA is committed to being at the forefront of research and development to help ensure a more promising future for both placental and umbilical cord blood stem cell therapeutics.
LifebankUSA is registered with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), accredited by the AABB (formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks), certified by ISO (International Organization for Standardization), and holds all necessary state licenses.
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The chance that a child will use his/her own stored cord blood stem cells during his/her lifetime is estimated at 1 in 400 (J.J. Nietfeld and F. Verter). These odds may increase if there is a family history of certain blood disorders or cancers. The potential risks and benefits of stem cell transplantation vary and depend on many factors, such as the amount and quality of the cord blood stem cells collected, the HLA compatibility between recipient and donor, and the client’s overall health.
Contact:
Ralph Fariello
Director
LifebankUSA, a Celgene Corporation
45 Horsehill Road
Cedar Knolls, NJ 07927
973-753-2550
info@lifebankusa.com
www.lifebankusa.com
Released on: Oct 31, 2007
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