The Facts About Cord Blood Banking

As a health care provider or other medical professional, you have more than likely come across a significant amount of information regarding umbilical cord blood stem cells from television news stories, newspaper articles, websites, professional medical journals, and curious patients interested in gaining a clearer understanding of their value. Fortunately, these are exciting times for the advancement of umbilical cord blood stem cell treatment. For example, in their 2001 Year-end Report, the American Heart Association reported the discovery that "tissue engineering with bone marrow and cord blood grows heart parts" to be among their "top 10 research advances for 2001." ¹

Unfortunately, there also seems to be a lot of misinformation circulating. It is our goal to provide you with the facts about umbilical cord blood stem cells so you can give your patients the ability to make an informed decision. Following are just a few quick facts regarding the proven value of stem cells:

• Harvesting umbilical cord blood poses no risk to the mother or child, whereas a bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell donor must undergo invasive medical procedures and is exposed to the risk of infection.
• Further, studies on umbilical cord blood transplants are resulting in sustained engraftment similar to earlier results achieved with bone marrow. ²
• Umbilical cord blood is cryogenically stored and immediately available.
• Umbilical cord blood stem cell research has shown potential for future treatment in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart attack, stroke, and spinal cord injuries.
• Cord blood stem cells have already been effectively used in the treatment of more than 70 malignant and non-malignant diseases, including sickle cell, leukemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, other forms of cancer, life threatening anemias, and auto-immune diseases to name a few.
• Stem cells from umbilical cord blood are more primitive than those found in bone marrow and therefore carry a lower incidence of graft versus host disease (GVHD), making it possible to perform transplants with less than perfect matches of marrow type and potentially decreasing the morbidity and mortality overall of the recipients. ³
• Cord blood technologies now allow for the multiplication of umbilical cord blood stem cells through ex vivo expansion. ⁴
• Umbilical cord blood has been used as a replacement source of hematopoietic stem cells for the treatment of human disease since 1988.
• Download our Transplant Physician Decision Making Process for Hematopoietic Transplantation for the diagnoses and probability for autologous and allogeneic stem cell transplantation.

Please visit our Stem Cells in the News section for more detailed articles and reports on stem cells and stem cells from umbilical cord blood in particular.

The Facts About Cord Blood Banks

When investigating cord blood banks, there are several questions which will help you and your patients determine which private cord blood banks utilize best practices. You should encourage your patients to make all of the following inquiries when considering a cord blood bank:

• How much umbilical cord blood is usually collected? (CorCell collects on average 80-100cc.)
• What is the final volume of cord blood stored? (CorCell stores 25cc's in a multi-compartment cryobag.)
• Is the cord blood processing and storage facility licensed (and are they licensed in all of the required states) and are they AABB accredited? (CorCell's stem cell bank is all of these.)
• Do they conduct cord blood stem cell counts pre- and post-processing? (CorCell does.)
• What contamination and infectious disease tests do they perform on the umbilical cord blood? (CorCell performs infectious disease testing, Total Nucleated and CD34+ counts - both before and after processing, sterility testing, and viability cell counts.) Do they perform these tests on every umbilical cord blood collection they process or only collections received from certain states? (CorCell performs these tests on every collection.)
• How many units have been used in successful cord blood transplants utilizing their current processing technique and facility? (Because this number is always changing, please contact a Client Relations representative for the most up-to-date number at 1.888.326.7235.)

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* New prospects for cord blood are being discovered every day. However, each case must be evaluated on an individual basis for the best treatment application. There is no guarantee that a cord blood transplant will be the appropriate treatment or will provide a cure.

Footnotes:

1. American Heart Association, AHA News 12/31/2001 American Heart Association's Top 10 research advances for 2001, 2001 Year-End Report, http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3000094

2. Unrelated Placental Blood in Marrow Transplantation, Stem Cells, Vol. 18 No. 2, March 2000; The Placental/Umbilical Cord Blood Program of the NY Blood Center, NY Acad Sci

3. Outcome of Cord-Blood Transplants from Related and Unrelated Donors, NEJM, August 7, 1997 Volume 337, Number 6; Clinical Research News for Arizona Physicians, December 1995, www.ahsc.arizona.edu

4. Aastrom Biosciences Presents Clinical Results at the American Society of Hematology Meeting, www.aastrom.com, December 7,1998; Aastrom Biosciences Enters Distribution Agreements...,www.prnewswire.com, July 28, 1999; Phase 1 Trial Promising for Cord Blood Transplant Booster, www.dukenews.duke.edu; Cord Blood Cells Grown in laboratory..., PR Newswire, December 7, 1995.