Media
The Flash Player is required.
The Doctors, CBS
“If you're a mom, or expecting...you don't want to miss the story of what happened to Dallas Hextell.”
– Doctor Travis Stork, MD
The Flash Player is required.
The Early Show on CBS
“He was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and became one of the first children in the nation to undergo a highly experimental treatment.”
– Harry Smith, Anchor,
The Early Show.
The Flash Player is required.
NBC Nightly News
with Brian Williams
“Just five days after his experimental treatment, an unprecedented transformation. Dallas talked, waved, and walked for the first time.”
– Ann Curry, NBC News
The Flash Player is required.
The Today Show, NBC
“Its an extraordinary reminder (of the benefits) that cord blood, that stuff that is thrown away as medical waste with the placenta. It is a perfect genetic match to that child. There in lies the true magic. You don't have to get donors. You have your own that are especially made for you.”
– Dr. Nancy Sneiderman
Can a child's umbilical-cord blood be used
to treat his own cerebral palsy?
By Erin Cline Davis
Los Angeles Times - April 07, 2008
DALLAS HEXTELL looked like any other healthy toddler when he appeared on the "Today" show on March 11 -- walking, clapping, laughing, waving to his mom.
But just nine months earlier, cerebral palsy had kept Dallas, now 2, from crawling, sitting up or reaching other milestones of child development.
Dallas' parents attribute his remarkable improvement to an experimental treatment using an infusion of his own umbilical-cord blood, saved at the wish of his parents in a private bank at his birth.
But cerebral palsy and stem cell experts warn that no one knows yet just how well the treatment has worked or whether it will work for others with his condition.
"We would love for research like this to put us out of business," said Dr. Dara Richardson-Heron, national medical director for United Cerebral Palsy. But until more research is done, she said, "it's important to be cautiously optimistic."
About one of 278 children in the United States has cerebral palsy, a motor disability caused by brain damage.
The biggest risk factors for the condition are prematurity, an infection of the amniotic fluid and oxygen deprivation during gestation or birth.
Cord blood has been used with great success as an alternative to bone marrow transplantation to treat cancer and blood disorders such as sickle cell anemia. It can also be used to treat a class of rare but fatal inherited metabolic disorders called lysosomal storage diseases.
But evidence that the stem cells that reside in this blood can travel throughout the body and incorporate into organs fuel the hope that their use can someday be expanded to the regeneration of many damaged tissues.
This hope has led to an increasing interest by parents to save their child's cord blood in private, for-profit banks, as Dallas' parents did.
Dallas was treated as part of a clinical trial at Duke University and is one of 12 children with cerebral palsy who has undergone the procedure so far. The trial is based on animal studies in which cord-blood cells injected into rabbits with a cerebral palsy-like condition traveled to the brain and lessened symptoms, in some cases preventing them altogether. The trial will ultimately study 40 children, tracking each child's progress for two years.
Foreign blood is required for those conditions to avoid infusing patients with cells that may have the same defect that is causing disease. But to prevent the patient's immune system from rejecting the cells in the foreign blood, the procedure also requires chemotherapy to destroy the patient's immune system.
The risks of chemotherapy are too high to justify using someone else's cord blood until it is known whether the treatment will truly benefit children with cerebral palsy, says Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, director of the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at Duke University Medical Center. For this reason, the trial is only treating patients who had their cord blood banked at the time of their birth.
To track progress, each child is evaluated by testing both their motor and cognitive skills over time. The results are then compared with the abilities doctors would have expected them to have based on their condition before the treatment.
Based on such evaluations, the treatment definitely appears to have benefited Dallas, Kurtzberg says.
But, she adds, "it's impossible to tell at this point" just how much progress he and others in the trial will make.
Kurtzberg says that of the children she has treated so far, only Dallas and one other child have made such dramatic improvements.
The others have had more modest results.
It is hard to tell, she adds, whether improvements were from the treatment, a "placebo effect" based on extra attention to the children and raised expectations of parents and physicians, or some other approach the parents were also trying.
Richardson-Heron stresses that it is important that families of children with cerebral palsy not get false hope from stories like Dallas'. The results of the cord-blood study so far "have great promise and are very exciting," she said, but until further research is done, "I would not call this a cure."
LA Times Article Link http://articles.latimes.com/2008/apr/07/health/he-cpalsy7
Give Today
Raise funds to aid families and researchers who participate in pioneering cord blood research.
Stay Informed
Receive regular updates from the Dallas Hextell Foundation.
From Our Families
"My husband and I had never heard about banking our baby's cord blood until we met Cynthia. I was pregnant with our son at the time. She told me about Dallas and I followed up with some research of my own and found it was something I thought we should do. I talked to my husband about it and at first he had some questions. I directed him to this website and he watched Dallas' story for himself. It moved us both to where we truly felt we would be doing our son a disservice by not banking his cord blood. There was so much peace of mind that came from our decision. Our son is 4 months old now and, although he has a clean bill of health, we feel much better knowing if something were to happen we are prepared to offer him every treatment option we can. We are so thankful to the Hextell's for informing us about this amazing science!"
-Travis, Lauren and Rylan Brown
From Our Families
"It was a year ago, at a family gathering when my husband's cousin told us of the very successful treatment of your son using his cord blood. Our daughter was expecting her second child, so we inquired about saving Emily's cord blood based on your story. We were sent the information and decided to have her cord blood preserved. We followed all of the procedures, the kit was sent to our daughter, her doctor was informed, and the cord was saved and picked up shortly after her birth. We are happy to have done this for our granddaughters as we understand that the cord blood can also be used for Taylor, the older granddaughter, (with a little less effectiveness) if the need arose. Thankfully, so far both girls are healthy and developing normally. Taylor is almost 3 and Emily is 5 months old. We would not have considered this option had we not heard of your son's remarkable progress. Thank you."
-Susan Schmiedt
From Our Families
"My husband and I had never heard about banking our baby's cord blood until we met Cynthia. I was pregnant with our son at the time. She told me about Dallas and I followed up with some research of my own and found it was something I thought we should do. I talked to my husband about it and at first he had some questions. I directed him to this website and he watched Dallas' story for himself. It moved us both to where we truly felt we would be doing our son a disservice by not banking his cord blood. There was so much peace of mind that came from our decision. Our son is 4 months old now and, although he has a clean bill of health, we feel much better knowing if something were to happen we are prepared to offer him every treatment option we can. We are so thankful to the Hextell's for informing us about this amazing science!"
-Travis, Lauren and Rylan Brown
From Our Families
"Prior to the birth of our second son, Roman, my husband and I were faced with a very important decision, whether or not we should spend the money to bank our son's cord blood? It was a question we did not have to think twice about because we had experienced first-hand the benefit's it provided to our best friend's son, Dallas Hextell. Seeing the progress Dallas made and the milestones he has reached made my husband and me true believers in the potential of cord blood. At that time, the decision to bank cord blood allowed us the knowledge that we had already started making the right choices for the new addition to our family. We both hope we will never have to use the cord blood we banked, but know we never wanted to say the words, "we wish we would have."
-Josh, Rachel, Dillon, and Roman Castellanos
From Our Families
"I have just given birth to my first baby girl and throughout my pregnancy I kept thinking of Dallas and the amazing story of his cord blood. Dallas is lucky his parents had the foresight to spend the money because not all people are educated enough to see the value. I made it a point to make my fiance aware of Dallas' story so he would be on board to bank our daughter's cord blood when the time came. He was amazed by Dallas' story and jumped right on board with the idea. I am a 35 year old, who knows what has happened with my own health over the years, I wanted to ensure my daughter's future health by banking her cord blood. I think it's such an amazing discovery, the ability to bank and use cord blood to treat diseases. I really hope this technology saves many more children in the future. Mia Isabella born October 2nd, 2008 has blood banked to keep her safe."
-Jennifer Maynard-Laabs
From Our Families
"I was pregnant when I learned about banking cord blood. My husband and I spoke with my doctor and our pediatrician about doing this and were told it wouldn't hurt to do if we could afford it. Dallas's results following his cord blood infusion was the only proof we needed. Cynthia and Derak's foresight and Dallas's bravery convinced my husband and I to bank our daughter's cord blood. Hopefully we'll never have to use it, but knowing it's there should something happen to her or our family is a comfort."
-Justin, Karyn, and Alanna Warner
