Florida Childrens Hospital in Orlando is launching a trial that will use children’s stem cells to treat acquired sensorineural hearing loss.

This groundbreaking phase 1 trial will be assesing whether a childs own cord blood can improve inner ear function, speech and language development.

Sensioneural hearing loss is the most common type of hearing loss, with up to 15% of children affected to some degree. This condition is caused by damage to the hair cells in the inner ear – which can be a result of birth injury, illness, head trauma, medication and excessive noise exposure. It is commonly seen in premature babies – and with more and more children surviving premature birth, doctors are seeing an increase in the number of young children with significant sensioneural hearing loss.

There are currently no therapies that are able to reverse the damage – with hearing aids and cochlear implants only reducing the symptoms rather than repairing the cells themselves.

Dr James Baumgartner, MD, Surgical Director of Florida Hospital for Childrens Comprehensive Paediatric Epilepsy Centre is the principal Director of this FDA approved trial. He says ‘Using cord blood stem cells to help trigger the body’s own repair mechanism could provide a non-invasive therapeutic option that does not exist today.’

The children in the study will be reinfused with their own cord blood, and then assessed at follow up appointments at 1 month, 6 months and 12 months after treatment. Doctors hope to see an improvement in inner ear function, speech and language development. The results of this study could be life-changing for children suffering from sensioneural hearing loss – which limit their development of language skills – affecting both their academic and social development.

This trial is one of a number of FDA-approved trials currently underway that are using cord blood in the field of regenerative medicine – to treat cerebral palsy, autism, paediatric stroke and brain injury amongst many other illnesses and injuries. The rapid development and promising results from these trials predict a bright future for the treatment of these diseases with stem cells!

Just hours after Bailey was born, her mother Rebecca noticed she was moving strangely. Despite initially being given the all clear, a brain scan was performed by the paediatric neurology team shortly after Bailey left hospital.

The results showed that she had suffered a stroke in utero. The doctors believe that a piece of placenta had travelled through her umbilical cord and into her brain – causing widespread damage to the left side of her brain. The strange movements noticed by Bailey’s mother were in fact seizures. With up to 25% of Baileys brain affected, she was unable to move the whole of her right arm and part of her right leg.

Bailey’s future seemed uncertain – with doctors predicting that she may never walk or talk without intensive therapy.

However her parents had banked Baileys cord blood at birth, and when they realised that it could be used to treat her brain injury they knew this was something they had to do for Bailey. Just like Kiwi children Maia and Phoenix, it wasn’t long before she was on her way to Duke University to have her cord blood reinfused by Dr Joanne Kurtzberg.

The simple 15 minute procedure is thought to promote healing of the injured brain tissue – reducing inflammation and causing new blood vessels and nerves cells to grow.

Since her reinfusions Bailey hasn’t looked back – at 14 months old she is reaching all the milestones. She can use both sides of her body, and is learning to walk and talk just like other children her age.

Dr Charles Law, the medical director at United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Birmingham calls her recovery ‘remarkable’. He saw Bailey both before and after she was treated with her own cord blood, and he says that, since the reinfusions, he wouldnt even notice anything was wrong with Bailey unless he was looking for it. Just like so many other children treated with their own cord blood, her clinical signs do not match up with the brain injury she suffered, nor what doctors predicted for her future – which is now looking incredibly bright thanks to cord blood!

You can read the full interview with Fox News here.