Page 48 - index

2012 ‫מועד יולי‬ - 47 - ‫ פרק שני‬- ‫ אנגלית‬

Text II (Questions 25-29)

(1) Israeli parents who want an "insurance policy" against the eventuality of their
children developing certain types of cancer or immune-system disorders can deposit

a small amount of blood from their newborn's umbilical cord in a "cryo-preservation
bank" in Jerusalem. Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem has opened the country's first

(5) such facility. Several university hospitals and medical centers around the world have
also established cryo-preservation banks, in which blood taken from the severed
umbilical cord can be stored indefinitely.

This blood contains stem cells that can be used to strengthen an individual's immune
system in the event that it has been harmed. In some cases, the bone marrow – which

(10) contains stem cells and is an important part of the body's immune system – has been
destroyed by the intensive chemotherapy used to treat people suffering from lymphoma
or other cancers. In other cases, the immune system's functioning may have been impaired
by diseases such as aplastic anemia. In situations such as these, the probability of
successfully treating patients increases if they receive their own stem cells rather than a

(15) donor's.

Professor Shimon Slavin, director of the national bone marrow transplant
department at Hadassah and a world-famous expert in the field, recently stated: "It is
unfortunate that umbilical cords are discarded in the delivery room when, in fact, they
can be extremely useful." Not only can umbilical cord blood be used to treat the

(20) person from whom it was taken, but there is a 50% chance that it can also be used to
successfully treat that person's siblings.

Questions

25. According to the first paragraph, people might want to store their children's umbilical

cord blood in the cryo-preservation bank -

(1) to help their children in the event that they develop certain diseases
(2) to help the researchers working at Hadassah Hospital
(3) because there is no better way of preserving blood indefinitely
(4) because this may help in the treatment of cancer patients around the world

26. The "facility" referred to in line 5 is -

(1) an umbilical cord
(2) an insurance policy
(3) a cryo-preservation bank
(4) Hadassah Hospital

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