SANTIAGO (AFP) – A middle-aged leukemia patient has became Chile’s first patient to receive stem cells from an umbilical cord in a radical procedure that could cure the disease, health officials here said Thursday.

The 48-year-old man received the transplanted cells on Monday from samples stored in the so-called “Bank of Life” institute, said doctors at Santiago’s Catholic University Hospital, where the operation was performed.

“Beforehand the patient received chemotherapy and radiation for seven weeks, and after a day of rest the stem cells were injected as if he were having a transfusion, through a vein,” Francisco Barriga, coordinator of the hospital’s Hematology and Oncology Clinic, told AFP.

read more:http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090723/hl_afp/healthchilesciencestemcells