The pioneering move using umbilical cords by haematologists at Heartlands Hospital is giving new hope to blood cancer patients, many of whom have died because they were unable to find a bone marrow donor.
After four bouts of chemotherapy, mother-of-two Pauline Slater, a 65-year-old retired teacher from Maple Hayes special school in Lichfield, was selected to have stem cells from two umbilical cords, which contain bone marrow, transfused into her body as there was no donor and she had no siblings that could be a match.
Frozen stem cells were sent to Heartlands, in Bordesley Green, from a cord bank in Australia, defrosted in a special machine and then put in a special solution and carried into Mrs Slater’s body in a similar vein to a blood transfusion. Once in the body, cells home into the “blood factory” and can replenish the supply of healthy bone marrow that has been attacked by the disease.
