Your viewing articles about; leukemia

Bone marrow donations could become profitable as a result of lawsuit

Current US law bans bone marrow donors to profit. However, a lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice challenges this prohibition as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause.

Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) involves taking a healthy sample of stem cells from bone marrow belonging to a healthy donor. This is then injected into the bone marrow of the donee. The new stem cells take over the production of the blood cells.

The Institute for Justice (IJ) filed suit against Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., asking that he be enjoined, (Refrained) from enforcing the federal criminal prohibition on compensating bone marrow donors. The prohibition is contained in the National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA) of 1984.

MoreMarrowDonors.org, the non-profit group, recruited the IJ to file the lawsuit to overturn the ban and allow for compensation to be made to donors.

Shaka Mitchell, president of MoreMarrowDonors.org said: “We think that there is much folly in a government law standing between a patient and a potentially life-saving program,”

Other plaintiffs in the suit include patients suffering from blood diseases like leukemia.

The plaintiffs argue that preventing sick people in need of bone marrow transplants from offering compensation to donors who could make those transplants possible, violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The counter concern is that payments will encourage individuals to conceal health conditions in order for donations to be accepted.

Bone marrow contains cells that are capable of becoming other types of blood cells. Thus they can be very beneficial and therapeutic for people with certain blood diseases.

An overturn of the ban could have a large impact on physicians, donors, and especially patients, including those with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and although the lawsuit may take a number of years to work its way through the federal court system.

In the meantime, news and media coverage may raise awareness of the shortage of bone marrow donors and trigger more donors to the registry.

         

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Cancer link between mother and baby proven

Professor Mel Greaves

Cancer passed from a 28-year-old Japanese mother to her baby, something that was theorized as possible but not proven.

A study led by Professor Mel Greaves of the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, Surrey, has proven that it’s possible for cancer cells to be transferred from a mother to a baby while in the womb.

The study involved a Japanese woman who was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after giving birth. When the baby was tested eleven months later, doctors gave the baby the same leukemia diagnosis.

Doctors focused on the child’s blood cells and the leukemia cells in the blood. Studies on the child’s blood cells proved that the child had the disease at birth and that it originated from the mother. Additional studies on the leukemia cells showed that a fundamental piece of DNA was missing that would cause the baby’s immune system to flag the leukemia cells as intruders.

In the majority of cases, a child’s immune system is able to recognize and destroy cancer cells. In fact, only about 30 cases of mother-to-baby transfer of cancer have been noted in medical literature (typically only leukemia or melanoma), and those studies were never able to show that the cancer originated from the mother. This being the case, transfer of cancer from a mother to her baby is exceedingly rare.

“This is an extremely unusual case, but this study is particularly revealing because it suggests that the cancer cells could only cause a problem in the baby by evading their immune system,” said Professor Peter Johnson of Cancer Research U.K.

“This is really important research as it adds to the evidence that cancers need to evade the immune system before they can grow, giving hope that by alerting a patient’s immune system to a cancer we can develop new types of treatment.”

“Women needing cancer treatment around the time of having a baby who are worried about this research should speak to the specialists looking after them for advice.”

         

Man Becomes a Daddy 22 Years After Freezing Sperm

A couple in Charlotte, NC have set the world record for having used the longest frozen sperm to produce a baby.

Chris Biblis was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 13 and was treated with 3 years of chemotherapy. When he truned 16, doctors told his parents that he would need more chemotherapy along with radiation, which would make him sterile. His parents wanted him to be able to become a father one day, so they decide to freeze his sperm before his radiation therapy.

Twenty two years later, Chris is now the proud father of a little baby girl. Last year, Chris’s wife, Melodie underwent a special in vitro fertilization to join the sperm of her husband with her egg. The procedure was a success and their daughter Stella was born 9 months later.

Stella was without any complications. She weighed in at 7pounds, 7 ounces and is developing nicely.

Biblis’ sperm was frozen on April 25, 1986, at a sperm bank in Atlanta, and was thawed June 12, 2008. A rep for Vanguard Communications in Colorado, who represents the Charlotte doctors who performed the procedure, says ““We believe this is a world record.”

Two of the fertilized embryos were implanted into Melodie’s uterus, but only one of them developed. Five other fertilized embryos were frozen for possible future use by the couple. The couple only took the first try of in vitro fertilization to become pregnant with their daughter.

Chris Biblis has now been cancer free for 20 years.

         

21-year-old sperm produces baby for IVF couple in USA

A North Carolina, USA, couple welcomed a baby last month that was born via IVF, (In vitro fertilization) from her father’s frozen 21-year-old sperm.

Reproductive Endocrinology Associates of Charlotte (REACH) disclosed on Thursday the birth of a baby girl conceived through IVF using sperm frozen for 21 years.

Chris Biblis, 38, the babies father, was treated for leukemia between the ages of 13 and 18. In 1987, when he was 16, Biblis family encouraged him to freeze his sperm, in spite of the fact that advancements in treating male infertility did not yet exist.

Biblis, who has been cancer-free for 20 years, sought fertility treatments at REACH with his wife Melodie, 33, in 2008. Baby Stella Biblis was born in excellent health on March 4th.

REACH founder and fertility specialist Dr. Richard L. Wing said; “They achieved pregnancy on their first cycle of intracytoplasmic sperm injection used in conjunction with IVF, a now-routine procedure for male infertility, using her eggs and his frozen sperm.”

Scientists first injected a sperm cell into a human egg in a lab setting in 1992.