Life was all good for Vigneshwaran, a little boy from class XI until he was diagnosed with Myeloid Leukemia, a lethal type of blood cancer. Vigneshwaran hailed from an ordinary middle-class family with limited exposure to the world at large. His parents were from a small town called Palani, down south Tamil Nadu. The diagnosis of this grave condition had the family running from pillar to post to get the best medical help to salvage Vigneshwaran's life. Even as he was fighting these odds, Vigneshwaran went ahead and completed his schooling and began his engineering studies.
The family struggled with many setbacks including lack of exposure to cancer treatments, the financial burden of the treatment and the aggressive invasion of cancer over their son's life. The story takes a miraculous turn when a philanthropist from Chennai offers financial help to the family.
After a lot of research, Vigneshwaran and his folks were convinced that stem cell treatment was the only ray of hope. Though hospitals in India were ready to offer stem cell treatment for cancer, Vigneshwaran was unable to find a matching stem cell donor in India. It was not possible to use his own stem cells as the disease had progressed to its peak.
With the help of his friends, Vigneshwaran approached the Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore. A global search was initiated by the hospital and fortunately, within just a week of his hospitalization, a suitable match was sourced in Australia. An Australian mother had donated her newborn's umbilical cord stem cells. These stem cells were found to be a perfect match for Vigneshwaran. The stem cell sample was sourced and the therapy was done successfully, helping Vigneshwaran win his battle against cancer.
There are many such patients in India who don't have such a happy ending to their stories. According to statistics, 70% of the patients in India don't find a matching stem cell unit due to low volume of donor stem cells found in Indian stem cell banks. Even if a patient does get lucky in finding a suitable match, the cost of one such unit could be anywhere between Rs.15-20 lakhs!
Image used for representative purpose only
Understanding the dearth of stem cell inventory in India, LifeCell has launched its new initiative of Community Banking that can help families get the protection of stem cells. Here's how expectant families can benefit from the decision to preserve the umbilical cord stem cells at the time of birth with LifeCell:
- Preserved stem cells become part of the LifeCell community pool of samples.
- Through the sharing concept of community banking, these stem cells are shared among community of all the parents who have banked with LifeCell.
- When a family from the community is need of stem cells for treatment, the common pool can be accessed for any number of matching samples at no additional cost.
By making such as wise decision, just like the how this newborn's umbilical cord stem cells saved this 22 year old, your baby's stem cells can also be a gift of good health to your own family or others in need.
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