Umbilical cord blood bank
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Umbilical Cord Banks, both private and public, have developed since in the mid- to late 1990s in response to the success of umbilical cord blood transplants in treating diseases of the blood and immune systems, such as Fanconi's Anemia and Leukemia. Umbilical Cord Blood, hereafter called "UCB", once seen as waste to be discarded after a birth, is now viewed as a precious resource. Since the first successful UCB transplant was performed on a child with Fanconi’s anemia in 1988, more than 2000 patients have been treated with this procedure. UCB contains hematopoietic stem cells, progenitor cells that can form red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets and can be used to treat many diseases of the blood and immune systems.
Public banks, established by medical centers, accept donations for use by anyone in need. Once the blood is donated, it loses all identifying information after a short period of initial testing, so that families will not be able to retrieve their blood later. Private banking allows families to preserve their blood for their own use. For-profit private banks charge a fee of around $2000 to preserve a newborn’s UCB for possible use by the family later.
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The storage process
Whether a mother chooses to donate UCB or store it for private use, the initial collection process is the same and poses no danger to mother or baby. The placenta is delivered and then placed in a sterile supporting structure with the umbilical cord hanging through the support. The UCB is collected by gravity drainage yielding an average of 99 mL and is then cryopreserved. Before the blood is stored for later use, it undergoes viral testing, including tests for HIV and Hepatitis B and C and tissue typing (to determine HLA type).
Other issues
UCB Banking is still in its developmental stages and there are issues in both private and public banking that need to be resolved before it will become a widely established practice. The main concern of cord blood banking, private or public, is that the long-term viability of cryogenically frozen cord blood has yet to be firmly established. The primary concern with public banking is how to ensure the safety of the cord blood. Because of privacy concerns, it is agreed by most ethical review boards that blood donated to a public bank cannot be permanently linked to the donor. Although UCB that is donated goes through a series of tests for potentially harmful genetic disorders and viruses, some genetic disorders such as congenital anemias or immunodeficiencies might not become apparent in the donor for months or years, by which time all identifying information has long been removed. Because the recipient of the blood could also develop these disorders, this is an important concern. The larger obstacle facing public banks is that the costs required to maintain them has prevented more than a handful from opening. Because public banks do not charge storage fees, many medical centers do not have the funds required to establish and maintain them.
Private UCB banking also poses problems. Children who develop an immunological disorder often are unable to use their own UCB for transplant because the blood also contains the same genetic defect. The cost of private banking also prevents it from being an option available to all families. Private cord blood banks have often been criticized for preying upon the insecurity of new parents, on the grounds that currently the chances of a child needing his or her own cord blood are exceedingly small, whereas storage fees at private banks are typically very high. Accordingly, for all but the wealthiest parents, it would be wiser to save the money against unforseen healthcare costs than to spend it on expensive private cord blood storage fees.
See also
Sources
- Cairo, Mitchell S. and John E. Wagner, "Placental and/or Umbilical Cord Blood: An Alternative Source of Hematopoietic Stem Cells for Transplantation," The Journal of The American Society of Hematology 90:4665-4678 (1997)
- Kline, Ronald M., "Whose Blood is it, Anyway?", Scientific American 284: 42-49 (April 2001)
- Kline, Ronald M., and Salvatore Bertolone, "Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation: Providing a Donor for Everyone Needing a Bone Marrow Transplant?", Southern Medical Journal 91: 821-827 (1999)
External links
- Details on Umbilical Cord Blood Donation (http://www.marrow.org/MEDICAL/cord_blood_donation_advanced.html)
- A Parent's Guide to Cord Blood Banks (http://www.parentsguidecordblood.com)
- Uses of Stem Cells (http://www.familycordblood.com/uses/htm)
