Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells
Today doctors use umbilical cord blood stem cells to treat about 70 diseases, mostly anemias or cancers of the blood, such as leukemias and lymphomas. Six thousand patients worldwide have been treated with cord blood stem cell transplants to date, though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration still considers the procedure experimental.
A major challenge in using umbilical cord blood stem cells is that if the donor and patient aren't genetically similar enough, the patient's body will reject the transfusion. The result can be fatal. In comparison, the umbilical cord contains very few stem cells to that of the rich content of stem cells in the placenta.
