Autologous (own) cord blood can be used to treat all disorders where autologous bone marrow is generally used. There are over 40 million autologous transplantations of bone marrow per year in developed countries. That’s even more then allogenic transplantations (i.e. from a donor).

The usage of autologous cord blood is possible among children and adults alike. The likelihood of use increases with age as the number of diseases that can be treated by hematopoietic cells is much higher. A recent study published by American scientists calculates that the odds of undergoing an autologous transplantation during our life are 1:400. These calculations were based on the occurrence of each disorder and the frequency of their transplantations. In the first 20 years of life the odds that a young person will undergo an autologous transplantation are around 1:5000.*

These estimates only count those disorders where hematopoietic cells are already used. However new results from experimental studies show that your own cord blood can be successfully used when suffering from such disorders like diabetes mellitus type 1 or traumatic brain injury at birth. The utilization of stem cells in these new fields of medicine increases the possibilities of cord blood use.

*Nietfeld at al., Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, 14:316-322, (2008