Say YES to cord blood banking

In the recent past  there has been a proliferation of family cord blood banks (for-profit companies that facilitate the collection and storage of umbilical cord blood for personal or family use), which are been rigorously advertised in public. This seeks the attention of the physicians too. Few survey conducting organisations had conducted few surveys to know the view of the parent and doctors regarding Cord blood banking. The survey was conducted mainly in USA and Canada and the doctors were all identified through IBMTR. The completed survey was received from 94/130 (72%) eligible respondents from 58 centres.

Around 51% of the respondents were clinical directors. Out of all the experiments 7 autologous cord blood transplants were performed at 6 medical centres. After all the experiments the families were asked if they would recommend family cord blood banking for their child with a healthy 3 year-old sibling. Te results came out as: 25% neutral, 47% recommended against, and 28% strongly recommended against. When parents were of mixed ethnicity, only 11% recommended banking (with 32% neutral, 42% recommending against, and 15% strongly recommending against). Thus we can understand that there is mixed reaction of parent in storing and preserving the cord blood for their child.

Few cross sectional surveys were emailed to pediatric hematopoietic cell transplantation physicians in the United States and Canada to know their view on cord blood banking. As a result of the survey it was studied that 55% of the population would choose autologous cord blood for neuroblastoma or for aplastic anemia. They preferred this in case there was no sibling donor available. The North European descent would generally not avail cord blood banking if they had at least one healthy sibling. Parent from other ethnicity would highly recommend cord blood banking for their child’s future.

In the absence of a known indication in the recipient, certain transplants using the cord blood stored in the private bank has already been performed. It all depends on the disease and the other alternative availability of the stem cells. If there is no other source to use the stem cells and the disease requires stem cells then cord blood from the banks are used as there are no other alternatives.  Certain Hematopoietic cell transplantation physicians also support the private cord blood banking in the absence of an identified recipient. 

 

However in the last one year the blood banks to store cord blood has increased in number. It has been seen that the cord blood banking falls under two camps while experiencing growth. One if the flat line growth which has less than 3% annual growth the other is the substantively building revenue which has more than 17% or more annual growth.

Still today cord blood is been used extensively to save lives of million. Stem cells from the cord blood have been used in more than 14000 transplants worldwide. The use of the cord blood was to cure diseases like blood diseases, genetic and metabolic disorders, immunodeficiencies and various forms of cancer.