Saved cord blood can aid future transplants

If you have a family history of certain genetic diseases, you may want to save your baby's umbilical cord blood, which is the blood that's left in the umbilical cord and placenta after birth. This blood is rich in stem cells that can be transplanted into genetically matched people to treat disease. Most of the time this material is thrown out after birth.

What are stem cells?

Stem cells produce all other blood cells, including blood-clotting platelets and your body's red and white cells. Think of these cells as the building blocks of your blood and immune system. Stem cells are used in transplant procedures to regenerate a patient's blood and immune system after treatment with chemotherapy or radiation. Cord blood can be used in transplant treatment for some kinds of cancer, blood disorders and autoimmune diseases.

Why cord blood instead of bone marrow?

It is often hard to match the bone marrow between a donor and a recipient. There is about a 25% chance of getting a match within a family using bone marrow, but there is a 50% chance with cord blood.
It's much easier to obtain stem cells from cord blood than from bone marrow. Collecting bone marrow is an invasive procedure, which means it involves surgery. It can be painful and it requires general anesthesia.
A broader range of people responds to cord blood stem cells than bone marrow.
There is less risk of rejection by the recipient in a transplant.
A transplant using stem cells from cord blood is much faster because there is no time-consuming immunologic matching necessary. This matching can take up to six months.
Cord blood seems to have a greater ability to generate new blood cells than bone marrow.

Should you consider storing cord blood?

If you have a family history of certain genetic diseases such as severe anemias, some kinds of leukemia or some other kinds of cancer or immune disorders, you may want to store cord blood. Check with your doctor. Most families, those without risk factors, would have a 1 in 10,000 chance of needing stem cell transplantation, according to the March of Dimes.

How is cord blood collected and stored?

There are two kinds of banks that store cord blood: public and private. With a public bank you need to make arrangements at least three months before delivery. The cord blood will be collected within 15 minutes of the baby's birth and stored. If you store at a commercial bank, the cost in 1998 ranged from $1,000 to $1,500 with an annual fee of between $75 and $150 per year, according to the March of Dimes.

Public banks pay for processing the cord blood sample, but they require parents to fill out a lengthy disease questionnaire. For more information, call the Cord Blood Registry at 1-888-CORDBLOOD. The CBR is affiliated with the University of Arizona. It is also possible to donate your baby's cord blood to a public bank.

There are ethical and safety issues regarding cord blood that remain unresolved, but this fairly new treatment holds promise.