In fact this latest ad was a masterful stroke of PR execution, citing rates of stem cell usage from the SCBB's own article and adding on the other applications worldwide. It highlights what families ought to store their own babies stem cells for their own use and advocates that private cord blood banking ensures 100% accessibility to your own banked cells.
If you can't see the facts and figures in the picture above here's the wording on the left:
Incidence rate of stem cell treatable diseases:
6 people are diagnosed with blood related diseases in Singapore every day
2 of the top 10 cancers afflicting Singaporeans are Lymphoma and Leukemia
1 in 500 babies are diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy
2 children are diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in Singapore every month
80 diseases are now treatable using cord blood stem cells and possibly more in the future.
Chances of using stem cells:
1 in 217 chance that a person may need cord blood stem cells for treatment in their lifetime
80 cord blood units were released for transplants and therapeutic applications by Cordlife.
Higher chance of finding a match within the patient's family:
70% of cord blood transplants by Cord Blood Registry were from siblings. 30% was for self use.
75% chance of a sibling match
25% chance of a 100% match between siblings. A perfect match is required for bone marrow transplants but not in cord blood transplants.
$26,000 is the minimum cost of buying back a donated cord blood unit if it is still in storage.
Availability of stem cells:
50% of all donations to a public cord blood bank are normally discarded for various reasons
100% - your accessibility to your privately stored cord blood stem cells.
All true of course, and I've always wondered this: Singapore's birth rate is at thirty to forty thousand per year and it's conceivable that there may be a time when every Singaporean has his or her cord blood stem cells banked in the future. Given Singapore's small population, its probably the best place imagining that this could happen, a very accessible and heterogenous database which could be leveraged for treatment and if consented, research for autologous regenerative purposes.
Now that would be really cool.
** Unfortunately the online version of this article isn't the full version that was published in print.
Malaysian Medical Advertising Regulations prohibits any form of advertising using terms ranging from "treatment" to "Thalassemia" so it is virtually impossible for us to advertise as our neighbors did (all brochures and the stem cell organization are required to be separately licensed by the Ministry of Health, so make sure the stem cell bank you're talking to has all the documented approvals and are operating within legal guidelines).
However, since all of it was factual and cited from peer-reviewed journals and both local and international news articles, its good to share these statistics with our patient base here too.
More information on StemLife's stem cell banking services can be found at www.StemLife.com
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1 comment:
In my very strong opinion, banking cord blood should not be controversial what-so-ever. In fact, due to the benefits the cord blood may one day offer if ever necessary, banking it should become a requirement or automatic. The only thing that should be controversial is the COST involved.
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