Umbilical Cord Blood – the Gift of a lifetime
It’s truly the gift that keeps on giving. The umbilical cord blood usually discarded after childbirth has the potential to save the life of a child, and maybe even a parent, years later. This medical miracle is available right now, in your neighborhood, with a simple and low-cost procedure. But only 1% of Canadians are saving their baby’s cord blood. This is information every Canadian family should have, just ask Patrizia Durante.
By Paula Anderton
It’s the kind of story you hear on Oprah or 60 Minutes, and it happened in our own backyard. In 2001, Patrizia Durante was pregnant with her first child, and living happily in Montreal with her husband Luigi, with everything to live for. Then, at 26 years old, she got the news everyone fears. “At almost 27 weeks pregnant I went for a routine blood test to determine if I was diabetic, and I was diagnosed with acute leukemia,” recalls Patrizia. “They had to start treatment right away, and now there were two lives they had to save.”
Patrizia had a mixture of two aggressive leukemias, requiring immediate chemotherapy if she had any hope for survival. The odds weren’t good. The baby was still too small to be delivered prematurely, and the cancer was growing rapidly. The chemotherapy she received, modified to protect the baby, wasn’t working. At 31 weeks into her pregnancy, it was decided to deliver Patrizia’s baby so she could receive the full dosage of chemotherapy she needed. Faced with a complicated leukemia that gave her a 10% chance of survival and the prospect of a premature delivery, Patrizia lay in isolation at Royal Victoria Hospital fearing the worst for herself and her baby. Then her husband brought her a book that changed everything. Patrizia recalls the moment: “The book my husband brought me described every stage of pregnancy and I found a page explaining how the stored umbilical cord blood could be used to cure diseases like leukemia. When I saw that I thought, ‘My God, this is it! This is my way out’.”
Patrizia’s doctor had good reason to be skeptical. The established treatment was an adult bone marrow transplant, requiring a perfect match. A cord blood transplant to an adult was uncharted territory. “Even after my doctor told me a bone marrow transplant was pretty much my only hope, for some reason I still felt I needed to explore the umbilical cord,” says Patrizia. Her instincts paid off.
The sympathetic nursing staff at the Royal Victoria hospital got word of Patrizia’s interest in cord blood, and arranged to have Dr. Alice Benjamin of St. Vincent’s hospital, a specialist in high risk pregnancies, collect the cord blood after Patrizia’s delivery. With the cord blood in storage and little Victoria Angel, only 3.5 lbs., safely delivered into the world, Patrizia’s chemotherapy resumed. But aggressive therapy only resulted in a two month remission, and her leukemia was back.
Patrizia was told to prepare papers, she was likely going to die. No match could be found for a bone marrow transplant, and chemotherapy had failed. In nine months of therapy Patrizia, a tiny woman of 100 lbs., had received 9 bone marrow biopsies, 213 blood transfusions and chemotherapy that left her without hair, nauseated and unable to hold her newborn baby. With nothing to lose, Patrizia’s specialist, Dr. Pierre Laneuville, suggested the cord blood. “He said, “we have this umbilical cord blood and no other option, so we’ll try it as an experimental procedure”. He gave me a 1 in 4 chance of making it, at best.”
Two months after receiving the cord blood stem cells from her daughter, two months of agonized waiting, says Patrizia, her blood showed signs of improvement. The simple transfusion of cord blood Patrizia received in March, 2002, from her own baby, had saved her life. Patrizia’s petite size had made the therapy possible, as cord blood is generally saved for the treatment of children, being too limited in quantity to treat the average adult. But Patrizia’s remarkable story proved that cord blood stem cells could be used to cure adults with blood diseases, as well as children, an incredible achievement.
Patrizia and Luigi named their daughter Victoria Angel, in celebration of the gift of life she gave her mother. She has truly been a miracle for their family. Born premature and under the worst of all possible circumstances, Victoria Angel is now a robust, dynamic 3-year old, who loves to remind her mother that she saved her life. “It’s the ultimate bargaining tool,” laughs Patrizia.
The miracle in Montreal has made Patrizia and her daughter celebrities, with a whirlwind of international media coverage, a movie in the works, and a public cord blood bank named after Victoria Angel in Markham, Ontario. Another cord blood foundation is in development in Montreal to be named after Patrizia.
Now fully recovered and perfectly healthy, Patrizia and Victoria Angel have become front-line crusaders for cord blood programs. Their inspirational story has made headlines, but more importantly, has increased awareness of the life-saving potential of umbilical cord blood. A simple, low-cost and effective therapy for many types of blood diseases and disorders, cord-blood collection and storage has the potential to save the lives of thousands of children, and with more research, adults, as well. Every family expecting a baby should have access to a cord blood program, and that’s exactly what the team at Cells for Life in Markham, Ontario, is aiming for.
2600 John Street, Unit 207, Markham, ON L3R 3W3 T: 905.475.5222 F: 905.475.6369
