[tri-med] FYI - CELLS IN AMNIOTIC FLUID COULD HEAL NEWBORN BABIES

I am forwarding this article or URL for your information (FYI) as I believe
it may be of interest and is from a reliable source. As always, check the
information with your own doctor or health care professional before starting
or changing any treatments.

CELLS IN AMNIOTIC FLUID COULD HEAL NEWBORN BABIES

One in 5,000 babies is born with a "body wall defect" such as a hole in the 
abdomen or chest.  Surgeons can correct this if there is
enough tissue present, but babies are often too small for a graft to be taken 
from other parts of their bodies.  One solution to
this problem is to take cells from the unborn baby and grow tissue for later 
surgery. However, taking the cells can sometimes
trigger a miscarriage.  Now, it turns out you do not need to touch the fetus 
directly at all.  Dario Fauza and Amir Kaviani at the
Children's Hospital in Boston have found early-stage embryonic cells floating 
in the amniotic fluid of a pregnant woman.

In experimental tests with lambs, these cells in the amniotic fluid have been 
grown into the tissue that was used to repair body
wall defects.With this new technique, cells grew into connective tissue much 
faster than cells that had been directly taken from a
fetus.  Fauza and Kaviani think this is because the cells from the amniotic 
fluid were younger.

Doctors often take amniotic fluid 16 weeks into a pregnancy to look for genetic 
abnormalities.  This is a common procedure called
amniocentesis.  If the amniocentesis suggests a baby might have defects, 
doctors could isolate this cells from the amniotic fluid
for to grow tissue for later surgery.  Fauza's team is currently monitoring the 
health of the lambs with body wall defects repaired
through this procedure to see how they fare.

Excerpted from article by Eugenie Samuel in New Scientist, October 10, 2001.


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