Therapeutic Potential of Human Umbilical Cord Blood Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Perinatal Asphyxia

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 Introduction

　Despite continuing improvements in perinatal and neonatal intensive care medicine, perinatal asphyxia and the resultant hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) continue to represent a major cause of mortality and morbidity such as seizures, mental retardation, developmental delay and cerebral palsy in the newborn infants. The incidence of HIE is 1 to 3 per 1,000 term births, and 23% of all neonatal deaths annually are caused by perinatal asphyxia. At present, there are few clinically effective treatments available to improve the outcome of this serious disorder. Therefore, the development of a new therapeutic modality to improve the prognosis of this disease is an urgent big subject. Currently, therapeutic hypothermia has been the only established effective therapy for HIE in the term newborn infants. Hypothermia has been confirmed as significantly reducing mortality and disability in survivors of HIE at 18 months of age. However, even therapeutic hypothermia was not quite effective against a severe type of perinatal asphyxial brain injury. Therefore, the development of new therapeutic modalities to improve the prognosis of this severe type of neonatal brain injury resulting from perinatal asphyxia is an urgent issue.