In February 2025, the international organization Parents Guide to Cord Blood Foundation, which for many years has been providing future parents with only verified information about the possibilities of storing and clinical use of umbilical cord
blood, announced an important announcement. The effectiveness of cell therapy in the treatment of cerebral palsy (CP) has been known for a long time, primarily in terms of improving motor functions in children. Duke University (USA) has gained the
biggest experience in this area, for almost 20 years conducting clinical trials using umbilical cord blood in the treatment of CP. However, for the first time in the world, the group of Nouri M. et al. (2025) compared the effectiveness of different types of
cell therapy for CP and evaluated it over time.
This study showed that improvement was faster with cord blood mononuclear cells. The young patients were treated at a single medical center in Tehran, Iran. The children had a spastic form of cerebral palsy, the severity of the disease was estimated between 2 and 5, and the patients were aged from 4 to
14 years. All patients received a single intrathecal injection of 5 million cord blood mononuclear cells per kilogram of body weight, or 20 million umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells. The comparison group received a placebo.
This study is important for expanding knowledge about the effectiveness of cell therapy for cerebral palsy, understanding the mechanism of action of stem cells in neurological diseases in children, and modifying the regimens, doses, and methods of drug administration.
Source: https://parentsguidecordblood.org/en/news/cerebral-palsy-response-cell-therapy-function-time and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39827383