Chloe Levine was born seemingly perfect — she was the happy and healthy baby her parents had dreamed of. But by the time she was 9 months old, Chloe was not reaching the milestones her older sister Shayla had met at that age. Chloe’s right hand was constantly clenched in a tight fist – she couldn’t even hold her bottle. And she wasn’t able to crawl; she would “shuffle” her body across the floor in a seated position, her mother, Jenny, recalls. Soon after Chloe’s first birthday, the Levines, who live in Denver, learned their daughter had suffered a stroke in utero and had become afflicted with cerebral palsy. “A part of me just died,” Jenny Levine said. “At that point there was no cure for her, no treatment other than therapies – speech, physical and occupational therapy for the next 18 years. As parents, that was not fine. We wanted her to have as normal a life as possible; we didn’t want her to face a life of disability.” The Levines remembered they had banked stem cells from Chloe’s umbilical cord at her birth, and wondered if they could be used to help treat her.
Stem cells from bone marrow have been used in medicine for about 40 years, primarily in the treatment of blood diseases, cancers and immune disorders. Stem cells have been known to jumpstart a person’s immune system, especially after an intense round of chemotherapy. But there are advantages to using stem cells from your own umbilical cord – the cells are younger, they have not been exposed to environmental factors like viruses or chemicals, which can alter the cell’s structure and function – and if you are using your own cord blood cells, your body can’t reject them.
The Levines were in luck: Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, a professor of pediatrics and pathology at Duke University, was conducting a study where children with cerebral palsy were injected with their own cord blood cells.
On May 28, 2008, at the age of 2, Chloe received a 15-minute re-infusion of her stem cells.
“The doctor is really cautious about what she tells patients,” Jenny Levine said. “She didn’t have a whole lot of results coming in. The best case scenario, we’d see signs of improvement in six months to a year.”
Within four days, her parents saw a noticeable difference, although Kurtzberg said most kids show benefits three to nine months later.
The rigidity on Chloe’s right side loosened up and her speech started to improve. She was able to ride her toy tractor, which in the past had been too difficult for her to pedal.
“Her life is completely normal, she doesn’t drag her right foot, she can use her right hand,” Jenny Levine said. “She rides a bike, a scooter…we’re taking her skiing this year. She’s fabulous.”
Doctors are currently researching the effects of umbilical cord cells and their effects on brain injuries, type I diabetes, neurology and cardiology. Kurtzberg is also studying cord blood infusions on babies with birth asphyxis (hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, which is damage to the central nervous system due to a lack of oxygen. It often leads to developmental delays) and babies with congenital hydrocephalus (an excess of cerebrospinal fluid on the brain at birth).
“Umbilical cord blood cell therapy for traumatic brain injury has a lot of pre-clinical work that has been done, suggesting that it’s beneficial,” Cox said. “I believe that cord blood is equivalent or better than bone marrow-derived cells.”
If the parents do not choose to save the cord blood, it is considered medical waste and thrown away.
“Really, the issue of cord blood banking today comes down to trying to understand what the future So, the long-term look is, and even the intermediate-term look is choose to save the cord blood, do not consider it as a medical waste and throw away.
