About Umbilical Cord Blood Banks

Umbilical-cord blood is rich in stem cells, the progenitors for red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Stem cells are harvested from the umbilical-cord blood and held in cryogenic conditions until needed. Stem cells can replenish bone marrow and immune systems destroyed by chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

Over 40 different diseases can also be treated by stem cells, including leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, neuroblastoma, refractory anemia, sickle-cell anemia and b thalassemia. Stem cells can also treat diseases of the bone marrow and immune system disorders such as Omenn's syndrome and Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome; metabolic disorders including osteoporosis and adrenoleukodystrophy; and some autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. It is hoped that with further research, stem cells will also be used to treat Alzheimer's, diabetes, heart disease, liver disease, muscular dystrophy, spinal-cord injuries and stroke.

In the past, a person who needed stem cells required a bone-marrow transplant from a relative or volunteer donor. However, many people are unwilling to donate bone marrow because it is painful to undergo the process, so thousands of patients annually have trouble finding a matching donor. Cord blood, on the other hand, is easy to collect. Public cord-blood banks keep donations and match them to suitable patients after ensuring that the cord blood is free of infectious diseases. Donation of cord blood to a public bank is safe and risk-free, and it costs no money to give a donation. Public cord banks do not store cord blood privately. However, if a cord-blood donation has not been used and is needed by the donor or a family member of the donor, it may be used under recommendation from the patient's physician.

Private cord-blood banks store stem cells for individuals for an initial fee, followed by yearly storage fee. These private companies operate under FDA regulations. When a baby is born, the attending physician or health-care provider collects the umbilical cord and placenta using a kit sent by a company, then sends them to the company. The company harvests and stores the stem cells from the umbilical cord. Private cord-blood banks claim to provide "biological insurance" in case the need to use stem cells arises after birth. Furthermore, some private cord-blood banks claim to purge the cord blood of cells that cause cancer, but these claims are speculative.

The use of the donor's own cells is not recommended by transplant physicians. Genetic diseases should not be treated with the donor's own cord blood, since the same condition affects the stem cells created. For this reason, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation only recommend private cord-blood banking to those families with a current need or a very high potential risk of needing a bone-marrow transplant. Otherwise, it is better to donate to a public bank. Similarly, public banks are supported and private ones questioned as legitimate by the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists notes that the likelihood of a donor using his own cord blood in his lifetime is less than 1 in 2,700.