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Oct 7, 2008 8:44 am US/Eastern
HealthWatch: Overcoming Cerebral Palsy
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Nearly three quarters of a million people have some degree of cerebral palsy in this country and nearly another 10,000 are diagnosed every year.
There's no cure and there's very limited treatment, but an experimental new procedure could change that. CBS 2's Dr. Max Gomez has the latest information regarding this possible medical breakthrough.
It involves stem cells - but not those controversial embryonic cells. They're stem cells that come from the child itself and they may just demonstrate the tremendous potential for treating diseases that scientists have been talking about.
She is 2-yrs-old but far from terrible. Chloe Levine is an adorable, active toddler.
She runs, she jumps, she plays. But her parents tell CBS 2's Dr. Gomez, they had their doubts that Chloe was a normal child.
That's because Chloe's parents knew something wasn't quite right with her. At 9 months she couldn't hold a bottle with her right hand. Chloe would drag her right leg and scoot rather than crawl.
"She was fast and she was good at it, but she wouldn't crawl," said Chloe's mom to CBS 2.
Tests showed Chloe had a stroke while she was still in the womb, causing cerebral palsy and her partial paralysis.
But then came hope. The Levine's had banked Chloe's umbilical cord blood when she was born, storing it with a private company. They learned of doctors from Duke University who were using cord blood, infusing children with cerebral palsy with their own stem cells to possibly repair damaged brain tissue.
Chloe had the experimental procedure in late May. Just two days later, her parents noticed a difference.
"She began to use words that we had worked weeks and weeks to get her to say, one being her nickname, CoCo... and that was music to our ears," her parents said.
The private stem cell bank says fourty of its clients have been involved in the experimental treatment at Duke University.
Results have been uneven but there's little downside of the treatment since the cells come from the child herself.
Private banks charge a few thousand dollars for the collection and then there's an annual fee of over a hundred dollars for storage.
But for Chloe Levine and her parents, every penny was worth it.
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