Posted by: csaadmin
in Videos on Jan 11, 2010
Hayley Pelletier – an eight year old girl’s blindness is reversed after eight years of blindness.
Stem cell treatment: Let there be sight
Optic Nerve Hypoplasia
Friday, 08 May 2009 15:47
SUN-TIMES NEWS GROUP
By WYNN KOEBEL FOSTER
If seeing is believing, Elmwood Park residents Heather Pelletier and her 8-year-old daughter, Hayley, qualify as stem cells' most fervent converts. The stem cell treatments Hayley had are controversial. But the success she experienced is hard to discount.
Hayley had been legally blind since birth, afflicted with optic nerve hypoplasia, or ONH, a leading cause of blindness in children. Her optic nerves, which transmit visual signals from her eyes to her brain, were underdeveloped. She could see only light with her left eye, not much more with her right -- objects at 20 feet that a child with normal vision can see at 2,200 feet.
Posted by: csaadmin
in Real Life Stories on Jan 11, 2010
Study Provides Needed Reference for Consumer Education on Stem Cell Odds of Use
BROOKEVILLE, Md.-New data published in the March issue of Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation indicate the probability of an individual in the U.S. needing a stem cell transplant, using either one’s own stem cells or those from a donor, is much higher than previously stated. This new research says that as many as 1 in 200 people will receive a stem cell transplant during their lifetime, based on current therapeutic use of hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells. These outcomes stand in stark contrast to previous estimates that suggest a much lower probability.
The study calculated the lifetime probability (age 0 – 70) that an individual in the U.S. will undergo a stem cell transplant, reporting that: 1 in 435 people will receive their own stem cells for treatment; 1 in 400 persons will receive someone else’s stem cells; and the combined total number of stem cell transplants will be 1 in 217 persons.
Posted by: csaadmin
in Real Life Stories on Nov 09, 2009
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.
